thewashingtonexaminer--2020-11-13--The Election Week winner? Alcohol

The Election Week winner? Alcohol

When several media outlets declared Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election last Saturday , Manoj Uppal didn ’ t think anything of it .
But shortly thereafter , dozens of customers began flooding into his liquor store , Barrett Liquors in Louisville , Kentucky , all with the same idea : They were going to celebrate .
Uppal ’ s store , like thousands of other liquor stores across the country , had a hard time keeping Champagne on the shelves that night , according to multiple reports .
`` The best way to put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's Eve , '' John Johnson , the sommelier and owner of the Wine Rack in Crescent Hill , Kentucky , told the Courier Journal .
`` It was a really fun day to be working and watch that . ''
Alcohol sales spiked well before Biden was declared the projected winner , though .
Heading into Election Day , searches for “ liquor stores near me ” reached record highs , according to Vox .
Drizly , an alcohol delivery company , said it saw a 75.23 % increase in sales on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cities that it services .
In Washington , D.C. , for example , Drizly said sales rose 133 % ; in New York City , 110 % ; and in Los Angeles , 35 % .
In the red-leaning states , sales were only 33 % higher .
And in the swing states , sales went up by 54.84 % .
Marijuana was also in high demand .
Eaze , a marijuana delivery service , said it saw a 17 % increase in California deliveries on Election Day .
Pre-rolled joints and vaporizers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ day , the company said .
Spokeswoman Elizabeth Ashford explained this likely meant “ that consumers were looking for products that would provide faster onset effects.
” All of this suggests that people went into Election Day feeling anxious for one reason or another .
And they looked to alcohol , marijuana , and comfort food for relief .
When the networks called the election for Biden , the preferred candidate of young people with disposable income , that caused the second wave of alcohol purchases .
`` The overall mood was very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lot of happy people , and a lot of joy , '' Johnson said of the customers who visited his store to purchase celebratory Champagne .
`` A lot of customers would say they just felt lighter than they had felt in years .
The whole weight of everything with the election was visible on people for weeks going in . ''

When several media outlets declared Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election last Saturday, Manoj Uppal didn’t think anything of it. But shortly thereafter, dozens of customers began flooding into his liquor store, Barrett Liquors in Louisville, Kentucky, all with the same idea: They were going to celebrate.
Uppal’s store, like thousands of other liquor stores across the country, had a hard time keeping Champagne on the shelves that night, according to multiple reports. "The best way to put it is it was like New Year's Eve," John Johnson, the sommelier and owner of the Wine Rack in Crescent Hill, Kentucky, told the Courier Journal. "It was a really fun day to be working and watch that."
Alcohol sales spiked well before Biden was declared the projected winner, though. Heading into Election Day, searches for “liquor stores near me” reached record highs, according to Vox. Drizly, an alcohol delivery company, said it saw a 75.23% increase in sales on election night in the blue states and cities that it services. In Washington, D.C., for example, Drizly said sales rose 133%; in New York City, 110%; and in Los Angeles, 35%. In the red-leaning states, sales were only 33% higher. And in the swing states, sales went up by 54.84%.
Marijuana was also in high demand. Eaze, a marijuana delivery service, said it saw a 17% increase in California deliveries on Election Day. Pre-rolled joints and vaporizers were the most frequently ordered products that day, the company said. Spokeswoman Elizabeth Ashford explained this likely meant “that consumers were looking for products that would provide faster onset effects.”
All of this suggests that people went into Election Day feeling anxious for one reason or another. And they looked to alcohol, marijuana, and comfort food for relief. When the networks called the election for Biden, the preferred candidate of young people with disposable income, that caused the second wave of alcohol purchases.
"The overall mood was very good — a lot of relief, a lot of happy people, and a lot of joy," Johnson said of the customers who visited his store to purchase celebratory Champagne. "A lot of customers would say they just felt lighter than they had felt in years. The whole weight of everything with the election was visible on people for weeks going in."


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-11-13--Biden's moment of truth

Biden's moment of truth

Before his doomed 2008 presidential run , then-Sen. Joe Biden , following the unofficial candidate tradition , released a precampaign memoir , Promises to Keep : On Life and Politics .
The book recounts his childhood and his staggering 39 years in politics up to that point ( by the end of his vice presidency , it was 47 ) .
In it , he explains away the plagiarism scandal that effectively ended his 1988 presidential run by saying his words felt “ absolutely authentic.
” At the very least , he learned a lesson : ” You should not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ win , ” Biden writes .
“ The questions you have to ask are why you ’ re running for president and what will you do when you are president .
You shouldn ’ t run until you know the answers to those questions.
” Biden has run again for president , proving that a third time ’ s the charm , seemingly without really answering those questions .
Democratic primary voters nominated him not because of any policy agenda or vision for the country , but because polling consistently showed he had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Biden ’ s own campaign hammered this point almost daily for months , while rivals such as Sen. Bernie Sanders highlighted their healthcare reforms and tax plans .
Tactics , to paraphrase his book , were central to Biden ’ s entire rationale for running .
To his campaign ’ s credit , Biden ’ s confidence in this strategy kept him coolly on-message .
When the press were writing him off after his humiliating placement in the Iowa caucuses , Biden ’ s wife turned to voters and laid out what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump .
“ I know that not all of you are committed to my husband , and I respect that , but I want you to think about your candidate , his or her electability , and who ’ s going to win this race , ” she said in New Hampshire , just days before the state ’ s primary .
Voters found that message unconvincing at the time .
Neither did it resonate in Nevada , where Biden hardly campaigned at all and earned just over 20 % of the vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ % .
But Biden stayed on-message , knowing for all that Democratic voters spoke about racial justice , income inequality , and healthcare access , the most important thing was humiliating the president .
And as the race turned to his favor following the South Carolina primary , it was not because of any eureka moment by voters who finally understood what Biden ’ s America would look like .
It was because he had proven his ability to win over black voters — a crucial constituency that is responsible for having put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the last 20 years .
Once that became clear , the rest of the Democratic Party ’ s voters fell in line ; Biden had passed the implicit test .
Other candidates , namely Sanders , naively believed ideas would ultimately win out in the end over Democrats ’ simple desire to remove Trump from office .
Following that primary , former President Barack Obama swiftly sought to end any remaining debate about the future of the Democratic Party .
He jumped on the phone with candidates such as Pete Buttigieg and Amy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the nomination was now closed .
They ’ d have more leverage to get Cabinet positions if they dropped out now and endorsed Biden before the pivotal Super Tuesday primaries .
And that ’ s what they did .
With the nomination wrapped up , Biden ’ s toughest days were presumably ahead .
Not only were journalists who literally cheered for Sen. Elizabeth Warren during one Democratic debate from the press room now theoretically forced to turn their attention to an elderly man they believed to have insufficiently woke racial sensibilities and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ debt , he would be forced to create a meaningful contrast with a president who oversaw record-breaking unemployment numbers , rising wages , and no new wars .
But right around the time Biden ’ s nomination seemed wrapped up , the medical and political communities finally began to accept the seriousness of the looming COVID-19 pandemic .
That handed Biden a new argument as soon as the old one expired : He could now say he was running for president to rescue the country from a plague exacerbated by Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effect of giving Biden reason to run the campaign from his basement , meaning the average reporter covering his campaign could enjoy the libations at various three-star hotels in Wilmington , Delaware , with any semblance of a substantive policy debate vanishing .
Instead , Biden would be asked by the press what , in the face of thousands of people dying , he thinks the government ’ s response says about Trump ’ s soul or whether Biden was sufficiently angry at the president ’ s supposed years-old remarks about deceased soldiers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ traditional merging of the press and the Democratic nominee ’ s campaign , this time , meant a referendum not on policy but on “ empathy.
” Voters awarded Biden a comfortable popular victory on top of a substantial one in the Electoral College .
To the extent one can trust exit polls , Biden ’ s victory had little to do with just about anything he said or did on the campaign trail .
Of the 71 % of voters who said their vote constituted support for a specific candidate , just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compared to 53 % for Trump .
Only 49 % said they held a favorable opinion of Biden , with 43 % saying the same for the president .
This dynamic was reflected in Biden ’ s complete lack of coattails in down-ballot races , where voters dropped the “ empathy question ” and made sure to repudiate the policies pushed by the rest of Biden ’ s party .
At the Senate , House , and local levels , voters overwhelmingly rejected Democratic candidates , many of them incumbents , suggesting that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ branding crisis than the GOP .
Despite predictions from polling shamans , the Democratic margin in the House will shrink to its lowest level since the Obama administration .
In private phone calls with Democratic leadership , lawmakers complained about the damage the defund-the-police movement has done to the party .
Majority-minority California voted almost as a center-right state and struck down ballot initiatives to revitalize affirmative action and expand the franchise partially to 17-year-olds .
Despite the best efforts by Democrats to tie Trump to the Republican Party , voters appeared to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lose control of a single state legislature after Election Day and made gains in swing states such as Pennsylvania , Iowa , North Carolina , and New Hampshire .
After hundreds of millions of dollars , often in dark money , flooded these local races from Democratic groups , the stain left by a summer of race riots did nothing to reassure voters that giving the Left local control of government was a good idea .
That brings us back to Biden ’ s initial question of what exactly a candidate will do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ To win a race , it seems the answer can be as easy as “ the opposite of the other guy.
” And in a time of a deadly pandemic , that can sound pretty convincing .
The problem for Biden is that voters seemed to send the message that they like a lot of what the GOP does as well .
When he enters office in January , Biden seems unlikely to be able to deliver “ the most progressive administration since FDR , ” as he often promised weary Sanders supporters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his way , will he be able to deliver one as liberal as Obama 's or even Bill Clinton 's , both of whom enjoyed unified government after winning their elections .
Odds of statehood for Washington , D.C. , and Puerto Rico have dropped precipitously , and Democrats could struggle to get a single appeals judge confirmed , forget stacking the Supreme Court , if the GOP retains control of the Senate .
Any fig leaf to the party ’ s most radical wing , such as making Sanders secretary of labor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , even though Biden was warming to the idea as the election drew closer .
Despite his former boss ’ s ban on the practice , a preliminary list of Biden ’ s staff appointments includes at least 40 lobbyists .
His future chief of staff , Ronald Klain , has enjoyed a rich career of bouncing back and forth between various Democratic administrations and campaigns , lobbying , and stints in finance .
One advantage of running a campaign based entirely on its utility in the general election is that it keeps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know they can ’ t truly feel betrayed when they see former Goldman Sachs partner and for-profit-college board member Gary Gensler as a leading candidate for running the Securities and Exchange Commission .
Neither can run-of-the-mill liberals feel frustrated about gridlock in Congress after they insisted that only Biden the Pragmatic Centrist could win .
In fact , they were more right than they knew : Nominating Biden not only didn ’ t spur a blue wave ; it might have prevented a red wave .
The Biden campaign ’ s strategy of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have backfired when it came to igniting enthusiasm for the ticket , instead doubling down on utility .
On the one hand , Biden wanted to send the message that he was willing to elevate the progressive future of the Democratic Party , but he also made it clear in the face of mockery from Trump and other Republicans that he would be the one in charge .
The California senator has held press conferences infrequently since her nomination .
The only real way to get access to the future second-most powerful person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thousands of dollars at a fundraiser .
There remains little evidence that Harris was an electoral asset in any sense to Biden ’ s ticket , but her deep ties to the California Democratic millionaire class helped usher in the money to create the most expensive presidential campaign in history .
The public remains skeptical of the choice .
Her favorability ratings on Election Day remained underwater , and Biden hardly let her speak that night or in the subsequent days when it became increasingly obvious they had won .
Harris ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find himself at the mercy of Senate Republicans , has all but been spent .
There will be much to scrutinize Biden over in the years to come .
Scandals related to his son , Hunter Biden , will likely find new life should the GOP keep the Senate .
His plan to tackle the coronavirus pandemic no way substantively differs from Trump ’ s .
The economy remains the most damaged since the Great Depression , and the Democratic Party sees either a cure in Obama-era technocratic liberalism or a cynical opportunity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a massively expanding welfare state to compensate those who may never see their previous jobs come back .
A bipartisan consensus has emerged against China , creating one of the most serious foreign policy challenges since the Cold War .
But now that House Democrats are weakened and Senate centrists empowered in a close-to-even upper chamber , Biden will have more decision-making power relative to his left flank than previously thought .
So what will he do ?
He got away with leaving that question unanswered so far .
Come January , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden has been in public life for a half-century , and we ’ re about to find out why .

Before his doomed 2008 presidential run, then-Sen. Joe Biden, following the unofficial candidate tradition, released a precampaign memoir, Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics.
The book recounts his childhood and his staggering 39 years in politics up to that point (by the end of his vice presidency, it was 47). In it, he explains away the plagiarism scandal that effectively ended his 1988 presidential run by saying his words felt “absolutely authentic.” At the very least, he learned a lesson: ”You should not run for president because tactically you can win,” Biden writes. “The questions you have to ask are why you’re running for president and what will you do when you are president. You shouldn’t run until you know the answers to those questions.”
Biden has run again for president, proving that a third time’s the charm, seemingly without really answering those questions. Democratic primary voters nominated him not because of any policy agenda or vision for the country, but because polling consistently showed he had the best shot at defeating President Trump.
Biden’s own campaign hammered this point almost daily for months, while rivals such as Sen. Bernie Sanders highlighted their healthcare reforms and tax plans. Tactics, to paraphrase his book, were central to Biden’s entire rationale for running.
To his campaign’s credit, Biden’s confidence in this strategy kept him coolly on-message. When the press were writing him off after his humiliating placement in the Iowa caucuses, Biden’s wife turned to voters and laid out what this election was really about: beating Trump.
“I know that not all of you are committed to my husband, and I respect that, but I want you to think about your candidate, his or her electability, and who’s going to win this race,” she said in New Hampshire, just days before the state’s primary.
Voters found that message unconvincing at the time. Neither did it resonate in Nevada, where Biden hardly campaigned at all and earned just over 20% of the vote, compared to Sanders’s 46.8%. But Biden stayed on-message, knowing for all that Democratic voters spoke about racial justice, income inequality, and healthcare access, the most important thing was humiliating the president.
And as the race turned to his favor following the South Carolina primary, it was not because of any eureka moment by voters who finally understood what Biden’s America would look like. It was because he had proven his ability to win over black voters — a crucial constituency that is responsible for having put every Democrat in the White House for the last 20 years. Once that became clear, the rest of the Democratic Party’s voters fell in line; Biden had passed the implicit test. Other candidates, namely Sanders, naively believed ideas would ultimately win out in the end over Democrats’ simple desire to remove Trump from office.
Following that primary, former President Barack Obama swiftly sought to end any remaining debate about the future of the Democratic Party. He jumped on the phone with candidates such as Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar and explained why their path to the nomination was now closed. They’d have more leverage to get Cabinet positions if they dropped out now and endorsed Biden before the pivotal Super Tuesday primaries. And that’s what they did.
With the nomination wrapped up, Biden’s toughest days were presumably ahead. Not only were journalists who literally cheered for Sen. Elizabeth Warren during one Democratic debate from the press room now theoretically forced to turn their attention to an elderly man they believed to have insufficiently woke racial sensibilities and no plan to eliminate all their college debt, he would be forced to create a meaningful contrast with a president who oversaw record-breaking unemployment numbers, rising wages, and no new wars.
But right around the time Biden’s nomination seemed wrapped up, the medical and political communities finally began to accept the seriousness of the looming COVID-19 pandemic. That handed Biden a new argument as soon as the old one expired: He could now say he was running for president to rescue the country from a plague exacerbated by Trump’s incompetence.
The pandemic had the added effect of giving Biden reason to run the campaign from his basement, meaning the average reporter covering his campaign could enjoy the libations at various three-star hotels in Wilmington, Delaware, with any semblance of a substantive policy debate vanishing.
Instead, Biden would be asked by the press what, in the face of thousands of people dying, he thinks the government’s response says about Trump’s soul or whether Biden was sufficiently angry at the president’s supposed years-old remarks about deceased soldiers just remembered by anonymous sources. The traditional merging of the press and the Democratic nominee’s campaign, this time, meant a referendum not on policy but on “empathy.”
Voters awarded Biden a comfortable popular victory on top of a substantial one in the Electoral College. To the extent one can trust exit polls, Biden’s victory had little to do with just about anything he said or did on the campaign trail. Of the 71% of voters who said their vote constituted support for a specific candidate, just 46% said so for Biden, compared to 53% for Trump. Only 49% said they held a favorable opinion of Biden, with 43% saying the same for the president.
This dynamic was reflected in Biden’s complete lack of coattails in down-ballot races, where voters dropped the “empathy question” and made sure to repudiate the policies pushed by the rest of Biden’s party. At the Senate, House, and local levels, voters overwhelmingly rejected Democratic candidates, many of them incumbents, suggesting that the party paradoxically faces a more serious branding crisis than the GOP. Despite predictions from polling shamans, the Democratic margin in the House will shrink to its lowest level since the Obama administration. In private phone calls with Democratic leadership, lawmakers complained about the damage the defund-the-police movement has done to the party. Majority-minority California voted almost as a center-right state and struck down ballot initiatives to revitalize affirmative action and expand the franchise partially to 17-year-olds.
Despite the best efforts by Democrats to tie Trump to the Republican Party, voters appeared to know better. The GOP did not lose control of a single state legislature after Election Day and made gains in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Iowa, North Carolina, and New Hampshire. After hundreds of millions of dollars, often in dark money, flooded these local races from Democratic groups, the stain left by a summer of race riots did nothing to reassure voters that giving the Left local control of government was a good idea.
That brings us back to Biden’s initial question of what exactly a candidate will do when he’s elected president. To win a race, it seems the answer can be as easy as “the opposite of the other guy.” And in a time of a deadly pandemic, that can sound pretty convincing. The problem for Biden is that voters seemed to send the message that they like a lot of what the GOP does as well.
When he enters office in January, Biden seems unlikely to be able to deliver “the most progressive administration since FDR,” as he often promised weary Sanders supporters; neither, should Mitch McConnell have his way, will he be able to deliver one as liberal as Obama's or even Bill Clinton's, both of whom enjoyed unified government after winning their elections. Odds of statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico have dropped precipitously, and Democrats could struggle to get a single appeals judge confirmed, forget stacking the Supreme Court, if the GOP retains control of the Senate.
Any fig leaf to the party’s most radical wing, such as making Sanders secretary of labor, is likely to remain a dream, even though Biden was warming to the idea as the election drew closer. Despite his former boss’s ban on the practice, a preliminary list of Biden’s staff appointments includes at least 40 lobbyists. His future chief of staff, Ronald Klain, has enjoyed a rich career of bouncing back and forth between various Democratic administrations and campaigns, lobbying, and stints in finance.
One advantage of running a campaign based entirely on its utility in the general election is that it keeps expectations low. Deep down, progressives know they can’t truly feel betrayed when they see former Goldman Sachs partner and for-profit-college board member Gary Gensler as a leading candidate for running the Securities and Exchange Commission. Neither can run-of-the-mill liberals feel frustrated about gridlock in Congress after they insisted that only Biden the Pragmatic Centrist could win. In fact, they were more right than they knew: Nominating Biden not only didn’t spur a blue wave; it might have prevented a red wave.
The Biden campaign’s strategy of hiding running mate Kamala Harris appeared to have backfired when it came to igniting enthusiasm for the ticket, instead doubling down on utility. On the one hand, Biden wanted to send the message that he was willing to elevate the progressive future of the Democratic Party, but he also made it clear in the face of mockery from Trump and other Republicans that he would be the one in charge. The California senator has held press conferences infrequently since her nomination. The only real way to get access to the future second-most powerful person in the world was to cough up thousands of dollars at a fundraiser. There remains little evidence that Harris was an electoral asset in any sense to Biden’s ticket, but her deep ties to the California Democratic millionaire class helped usher in the money to create the most expensive presidential campaign in history.
The public remains skeptical of the choice. Her favorability ratings on Election Day remained underwater, and Biden hardly let her speak that night or in the subsequent days when it became increasingly obvious they had won. Harris’s use, particularly as Biden will likely find himself at the mercy of Senate Republicans, has all but been spent.
There will be much to scrutinize Biden over in the years to come. Scandals related to his son, Hunter Biden, will likely find new life should the GOP keep the Senate. His plan to tackle the coronavirus pandemic no way substantively differs from Trump’s. The economy remains the most damaged since the Great Depression, and the Democratic Party sees either a cure in Obama-era technocratic liberalism or a cynical opportunity to usher in a new era of a massively expanding welfare state to compensate those who may never see their previous jobs come back. A bipartisan consensus has emerged against China, creating one of the most serious foreign policy challenges since the Cold War.
But now that House Democrats are weakened and Senate centrists empowered in a close-to-even upper chamber, Biden will have more decision-making power relative to his left flank than previously thought. So what will he do? He got away with leaving that question unanswered so far. Come January, that ceases to be an option. Joe Biden has been in public life for a half-century, and we’re about to find out why.
Joseph Simonson is a Washington Examiner political reporter.


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-11-13--Two runoff races in one state will determine Senate control

The schizophrenic Republican message in the race for two Georgia Senate seats has caught comedy writers ' attention .
With the GOP majority on the line in a rare pair of runoff elections , Senate Republicans are blanketing Georgia with tens of millions of dollars and thousands of paid staff and volunteers in an aggressive bid to convince voters to pull the lever on Jan. 5 for first-term Sen. David Perdue and appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler .
Simultaneously , President Trump and his supporters , including Perdue and Loeffler , are claiming Georgia 's voting system is rife with fraud @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they say , in an apparent effort to explain how President-elect Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win the state 's Electoral College votes since 1992 .
`` On Jan. 5 , vote for American values by casting your ballot for David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in another totally rigged election .
Your ballot will be turned into compost by corrupt Democratic poll workers who want to steal another election , '' declared the voice-over in a parody of a GOP campaign advertisement crafted by CBS 's The Late Show with Stephen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote because a vote for Republicans is a vote that 's a futile exercise thanks to socialist mailmen canceling your vote with ballots from dead people , '' the spoofed television spot continues .
`` The results wo n't matter because it 's the most important election of our lifetimes .
Hanging in the balance is control of the Senate , which Republicans need to check Joe Biden , who will never be inaugurated .
Trump won the election by a lot of votes . ''
Having garnered 14,056 votes more than Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's 16 electoral votes after an unprecedented hand recount of ballots finishes this month or next .
In that same Nov. 3 election , Perdue defeated Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff by 86,637 votes , and Loeffler finished 7 percentage points behind Democrat Raphael Warnock in a crowded special primary election held the same day .
Neither Perdue nor Warnock received 50 % of the vote , triggering January runoffs that might deliver Senate control to the Democrats .
But Trump claims the election was fraudulent , and Perdue and Loeffler , apparently agreeing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger , resign on the grounds he mismanaged the vote .
Republican leaders in Washington , bolstering Trump 's assertions , are declining to refer to Biden as president-elect .
Perdue and Loeffler , plus the Republican senators and conservative groups parading through Georgia to campaign for them , are imploring voters to back the GOP nominees lest Democrats win the Senate and give Biden a blank check for socialist Armageddon .
Erick Erickson , a conservative writer and talk radio host in Macon , Georgia , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of depressing Republican turnout .
`` There is going to be a segment of the base that thinks if Georgia is going to be stolen by Democrats when Republicans are in charge , why bother ? ''
he said .
`` For those who internalize that , it 's going to be a problem getting them motivated . ''
With all Senate races from the November elections settled except the two Georgia runoffs , Republicans hold 50 seats to the Democrats ' 48 .
The GOP can afford to lose one runoff , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would cede control of the chamber , based on Vice President-elect Kamala Harris 's tiebreaking vote .
This dynamic last occurred in 2001 after President George W. Bush was inaugurated , with Republicans ruling a 50-50 Senate because of Vice President Dick Cheney 's tiebreaker .
A Republican senator switched party allegiances later that year , delivering the Democrats a one-seat majority for the remainder of the 107th Congress .
To hold the line in Georgia , Republicans and their allies are leaving nothing to chance .
The Club for Growth is investing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leading what it dubs the `` Save America '' coalition of leading conservative groups in a coordinated effort to push Perdue and Loeffler over the finish line .
The National Republican Senatorial Committee , the Senate GOP campaign arm , is even more engaged .
The NRSC , in conjunction with the Perdue and Loeffler campaigns , plans to spend tens of millions of dollars more , with expenditures on advertising plus robust field and data programs that include hundreds of ground troops and nearly two dozen regional field offices across the state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the outcome of the presidential election , the campaigns are running on a message that Democratic victories would eliminate the last line of defense in Washington for Republicans and the voters that support them .
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York , who declared that `` now , we take Georgia , then we change America , '' is figuring prominently in GOP talking points .
Republicans are confident the pitch will be successful .
`` There is a very real consequence to Democrats taking control of the U.S. Senate , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ `` The only way they can do that , as Sen. Schumer so aptly put it , is if they take Georgia . ''
Republicans have history on their side .
The winner in round one of a November election for Senate tends to win the runoff .
That is what happened in 2008 when then-Sen. Saxby Chambliss , a Republican , was forced into a runoff against Democrat Jim Martin .
That bodes well for Perdue .
What about Loeffler ?
The last time a Democratic presidential nominee won Georgia was 1992 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That year , Republican Senate challenger Paul Coverdell finished second in the general election but went on to oust Democratic incumbent Wyche Fowler in the runoff .
Also , turnout tends to be lower in runoff elections , which also benefits the Republican candidates in a year that smashed turnout records .
Still , after Biden topped Trump and Georgia emerged as a genuinely competitive battleground for the first time in decades , Democrats like their chances .
With the Republican message still muddled and Trump dominating the discussion on the right , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus competency and protecting Obamacare will resonate with voters just like it did in the presidential race .
`` While Republicans are forced to run on a toxic message of fighting against healthcare protections for 1.8 million Georgians with preexisting conditions and stalling on coronavirus relief , Georgia Democrats are focused on issues like expanding access to healthcare and making sure we have an economy that works for all Georgia families , '' said Alex Floyd , spokesman for the Georgia Democratic Party .

The schizophrenic Republican message in the race for two Georgia Senate seats has caught comedy writers' attention.
With the GOP majority on the line in a rare pair of runoff elections, Senate Republicans are blanketing Georgia with tens of millions of dollars and thousands of paid staff and volunteers in an aggressive bid to convince voters to pull the lever on Jan. 5 for first-term Sen. David Perdue and appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler. Simultaneously, President Trump and his supporters, including Perdue and Loeffler, are claiming Georgia's voting system is rife with fraud. It cannot be trusted, they say, in an apparent effort to explain how President-elect Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win the state's Electoral College votes since 1992.
"On Jan. 5, vote for American values by casting your ballot for David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in another totally rigged election. Your ballot will be turned into compost by corrupt Democratic poll workers who want to steal another election," declared the voice-over in a parody of a GOP campaign advertisement crafted by CBS's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
"So, remember to vote because a vote for Republicans is a vote that's a futile exercise thanks to socialist mailmen canceling your vote with ballots from dead people," the spoofed television spot continues. "The results won't matter because it's the most important election of our lifetimes. Hanging in the balance is control of the Senate, which Republicans need to check Joe Biden, who will never be inaugurated. Trump won the election by a lot of votes."
If you're confused, here's a primer:
Having garnered 14,056 votes more than Trump, Biden is poised to win Georgia's 16 electoral votes after an unprecedented hand recount of ballots finishes this month or next. In that same Nov. 3 election, Perdue defeated Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff by 86,637 votes, and Loeffler finished 7 percentage points behind Democrat Raphael Warnock in a crowded special primary election held the same day. Neither Perdue nor Warnock received 50% of the vote, triggering January runoffs that might deliver Senate control to the Democrats.
But Trump claims the election was fraudulent, and Perdue and Loeffler, apparently agreeing, demanded Georgia's top elections official, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, resign on the grounds he mismanaged the vote. Republican leaders in Washington, bolstering Trump's assertions, are declining to refer to Biden as president-elect. Perdue and Loeffler, plus the Republican senators and conservative groups parading through Georgia to campaign for them, are imploring voters to back the GOP nominees lest Democrats win the Senate and give Biden a blank check for socialist Armageddon.
Erick Erickson, a conservative writer and talk radio host in Macon, Georgia, said the conflicting message runs the risk of depressing Republican turnout. "There is going to be a segment of the base that thinks if Georgia is going to be stolen by Democrats when Republicans are in charge, why bother?" he said. "For those who internalize that, it's going to be a problem getting them motivated."
With all Senate races from the November elections settled except the two Georgia runoffs, Republicans hold 50 seats to the Democrats' 48.
The GOP can afford to lose one runoff, but a Democratic sweep on Jan. 5 would cede control of the chamber, based on Vice President-elect Kamala Harris's tiebreaking vote. This dynamic last occurred in 2001 after President George W. Bush was inaugurated, with Republicans ruling a 50-50 Senate because of Vice President Dick Cheney's tiebreaker. A Republican senator switched party allegiances later that year, delivering the Democrats a one-seat majority for the remainder of the 107th Congress.
To hold the line in Georgia, Republicans and their allies are leaving nothing to chance.
The Club for Growth is investing $10 million in the runoffs and leading what it dubs the "Save America" coalition of leading conservative groups in a coordinated effort to push Perdue and Loeffler over the finish line. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP campaign arm, is even more engaged. The NRSC, in conjunction with the Perdue and Loeffler campaigns, plans to spend tens of millions of dollars more, with expenditures on advertising plus robust field and data programs that include hundreds of ground troops and nearly two dozen regional field offices across the state.
And despite Trump's protestations about the outcome of the presidential election, the campaigns are running on a message that Democratic victories would eliminate the last line of defense in Washington for Republicans and the voters that support them. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, who declared that "now, we take Georgia, then we change America," is figuring prominently in GOP talking points. Republicans are confident the pitch will be successful.
"There is a very real consequence to Democrats taking control of the U.S. Senate," NRSC spokesman Jesse Hunt said. "The only way they can do that, as Sen. Schumer so aptly put it, is if they take Georgia."
Republicans have history on their side. The winner in round one of a November election for Senate tends to win the runoff. That is what happened in 2008 when then-Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a Republican, was forced into a runoff against Democrat Jim Martin. That bodes well for Perdue. What about Loeffler? The last time a Democratic presidential nominee won Georgia was 1992 when Bill Clinton won the state. That year, Republican Senate challenger Paul Coverdell finished second in the general election but went on to oust Democratic incumbent Wyche Fowler in the runoff. Also, turnout tends to be lower in runoff elections, which also benefits the Republican candidates in a year that smashed turnout records.
Still, after Biden topped Trump and Georgia emerged as a genuinely competitive battleground for the first time in decades, Democrats like their chances. With the Republican message still muddled and Trump dominating the discussion on the right, Democrats are expressing confidence that running on coronavirus competency and protecting Obamacare will resonate with voters just like it did in the presidential race.
"While Republicans are forced to run on a toxic message of fighting against healthcare protections for 1.8 million Georgians with preexisting conditions and stalling on coronavirus relief, Georgia Democrats are focused on issues like expanding access to healthcare and making sure we have an economy that works for all Georgia families," said Alex Floyd, spokesman for the Georgia Democratic Party.


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-11-13--'The message wasn’t right': Election losses leave stunned Democrats rethinking path forward

House and Senate Democrats are rethinking their messaging after stunning losses on Nov. 3 .
Democrats returned to Congress this week chastened by the election results that fell far short of polling predictions .
The party is now wondering if it is time to reform its message .
`` The message was n't right , whatever it was , '' Sen. Joe Manchin , a West Virginia Democrat , told the Washington Examiner .
Analysts predicted that Senate Democrats were likely to sweep into the majority by flipping as many as eight seats .
Instead , they won Republican seats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's seat held by Democratic Sen. Doug Jones .
Other Republicans , such as Sens .
Lindsey Graham , Susan Collins , and Joni Ernst , easily won their reelection efforts despite polling that showed them behind or in tight races .
Democrats expanded their 47-member caucus by just one vote and will remain in the minority unless they can win two Senate seats up for grabs in two Georgia runoff elections .
Manchin and other Senate Democrats who long advocated for a centrist agenda that avoided pledges to eliminate the filibuster , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pack the Supreme Court , said the election shows that voters do not support a far-left agenda .
`` I 've always thought the electorate is more moderate , '' Manchin told the Washington Examiner .
Asked about eliminating the filibuster , which prominent party liberals called for ahead of the election , Manchin responded , `` That 's crazy talk .
Crazy talk . ''
House Democrats are scheduled to return to the Capitol this week for the post-election `` lame duck '' session .
They 'll gather privately for leadership elections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ House Democrats performed particularly poorly on Election Day , failing to flip any seat defended by a GOP incumbent despite polling predictions to expand their majority by up to 15 seats .
They managed to win only three GOP seats left vacant in North Carolina and Georgia .
Two wins in North Carolina were primarily the results of redistricting in favor of Democrats .
Republicans outperformed polls and have flipped eleven seats so far .
They are on target for a net gain of at least eight seats , with many races still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a fourth term with the gavel , House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now poised to control the smallest majority since World War II .
Pelosi has yet to address the losses directly but told fellow Democrats and the media that Joe Biden 's victory marks a significant win and a mandate for the party .
But party centrists say the messaging to voters was hijacked by prominent members of the caucus 's far-left wing , including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , who supports defunding the police , eliminating immigration enforcement officers , and implementing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Green New Deal .
`` The brand has been weak for a while , '' Rep. Elissa Slotkin , a centrist Michigan Democrat , said on MNSBC .
`` And therefore , every two years , you can superimpose whatever is the most popular thing , and you are going to convince some people that is what all Democrats are about . ''
The liberal wing of the Democratic caucus is fighting back against the charge .
The Sunrise Movement , Justice Democrats , and other liberal groups circulated a letter last week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and arguing that Democrats did not do enough to embrace their base and show they will work to raise wages , support Black Lives Matter , and implement a wealth tax , among other initiatives .
The groups attacked Pelosi over her April appearance on the Late Late Show .
Pelosi conducted the interview from her San Francisco home while eating expensive ice cream in front of two costly freezers .
`` When Democratic leaders make unforced errors like showing off two sub-zero freezers full of ice cream on national television or cozy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lobbyists while Trump tells voters we are the party of the swamp , it is not surprising that we lose , '' the letter said .
`` We need a new generation of leadership grounded in a multiracial , working-class experience and background . ''
So far , nobody is challenging Pelosi for the speaker 's job .
Still , the head of the House Democratic campaign arm , Rep. Cheri Bustos , announced she 'll step down from her position after narrowly winning reelection to her Illinois seat .
Ocasio-Cortez defended the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including `` Defund the Police , '' came from activists , not the Democratic Party .
`` The messaging hurt to the extent that it did because our operations and investments are not great , and it makes the party vulnerable , '' Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter .
`` The blind impulse to blame activists and the left both demoralizes a key constituency and distracts from asking real questions and fixing serious operational issues . ''

House and Senate Democrats are rethinking their messaging after stunning losses on Nov. 3. Democrats returned to Congress this week chastened by the election results that fell far short of polling predictions. The party is now wondering if it is time to reform its message.
"The message wasn't right, whatever it was," Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, told the Washington Examiner.
Analysts predicted that Senate Democrats were likely to sweep into the majority by flipping as many as eight seats.
Instead, they won Republican seats in Arizona and Colorado and lost Alabama's seat held by Democratic Sen. Doug Jones. Other Republicans, such as Sens. Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, and Joni Ernst, easily won their reelection efforts despite polling that showed them behind or in tight races.
Democrats expanded their 47-member caucus by just one vote and will remain in the minority unless they can win two Senate seats up for grabs in two Georgia runoff elections.
Manchin and other Senate Democrats who long advocated for a centrist agenda that avoided pledges to eliminate the filibuster, implement the Green New Deal, or pack the Supreme Court, said the election shows that voters do not support a far-left agenda.
"I've always thought the electorate is more moderate," Manchin told the Washington Examiner.
Asked about eliminating the filibuster, which prominent party liberals called for ahead of the election, Manchin responded, "That's crazy talk. Crazy talk."
House Democrats are scheduled to return to the Capitol this week for the post-election "lame duck" session.
They'll gather privately for leadership elections and likely a lot of self-reflection.
House Democrats performed particularly poorly on Election Day, failing to flip any seat defended by a GOP incumbent despite polling predictions to expand their majority by up to 15 seats.
They managed to win only three GOP seats left vacant in North Carolina and Georgia. Two wins in North Carolina were primarily the results of redistricting in favor of Democrats.
Republicans outperformed polls and have flipped eleven seats so far. They are on target for a net gain of at least eight seats, with many races still undecided.
If she is reelected to a fourth term with the gavel, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now poised to control the smallest majority since World War II.
Pelosi has yet to address the losses directly but told fellow Democrats and the media that Joe Biden's victory marks a significant win and a mandate for the party.
But party centrists say the messaging to voters was hijacked by prominent members of the caucus's far-left wing, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who supports defunding the police, eliminating immigration enforcement officers, and implementing a dramatic climate change plan, the Green New Deal.
"The brand has been weak for a while," Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a centrist Michigan Democrat, said on MNSBC. "And therefore, every two years, you can superimpose whatever is the most popular thing, and you are going to convince some people that is what all Democrats are about."
The liberal wing of the Democratic caucus is fighting back against the charge.
The Sunrise Movement, Justice Democrats, and other liberal groups circulated a letter last week, doubling down on the liberal message and arguing that Democrats did not do enough to embrace their base and show they will work to raise wages, support Black Lives Matter, and implement a wealth tax, among other initiatives.
The groups attacked Pelosi over her April appearance on the Late Late Show. Pelosi conducted the interview from her San Francisco home while eating expensive ice cream in front of two costly freezers.
"When Democratic leaders make unforced errors like showing off two sub-zero freezers full of ice cream on national television or cozy up with Wall Street executives and corporate lobbyists while Trump tells voters we are the party of the swamp, it is not surprising that we lose," the letter said. "We need a new generation of leadership grounded in a multiracial, working-class experience and background."
So far, nobody is challenging Pelosi for the speaker's job. Still, the head of the House Democratic campaign arm, Rep. Cheri Bustos, announced she'll step down from her position after narrowly winning reelection to her Illinois seat.
Ocasio-Cortez defended the progressive agenda and said that slogans, including "Defund the Police," came from activists, not the Democratic Party.
"The messaging hurt to the extent that it did because our operations and investments are not great, and it makes the party vulnerable," Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter. "The blind impulse to blame activists and the left both demoralizes a key constituency and distracts from asking real questions and fixing serious operational issues."


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-11-13--The Real Majority at 50

The Real Majority at 50

Political tension is high .
The major parties face a realignment , while the nation struggles with protests , riots , and rising crime .
Democrats are divided over whether to embrace the new radical demands of an energized far-left faction or to keep to the traditional values of the coalition built by Franklin D. Roosevelt , which has sustained them for decades .
That was the American political scene in 1970 , when Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg wrote The Real Majority : An Extraordinary Examination of the American Electorate .
It is also the scene today , 50 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s book was a bestseller and the best examination of the rising Silent Majority .
Many in that majority were former Democrats , repelled by their ancestral party ’ s growing radical fringe , who found a home in what would become Richard Nixon ’ s vast supermajority in 1972 .
As we assess the results of the 2020 elections , we find ourselves in a similar place .
The Democrats face a repetition of their polarizing choices .
The Real Majority is relevant again and has lessons for both parties , if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among these : The radicals appear to have the energy and momentum , but elections are won and policy is made at the center .
Scammon and Wattenberg were both Democrats in 1970 and wrote the book as advice to their own party , but it proved more useful to the other side .
Nixon had already begun to emphasize the Silent Majority theme by then , and The Real Majority fleshed out the idea with psephological rigor .
The authors contended that the New Deal coalition was splintering , threatening the decadeslong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resonated with Nixon .
He was among the `` me-too '' Republicans of the 1950s who had made peace with FDR ’ s expansion of government rather than continue the increasingly futile effort to roll it back .
Nixon , like Dwight Eisenhower before him , knew that votes and policy were made in the center , not at the hardcore edges of either ideology .
The New Deal , in the authors ’ telling , was an economic shift but not a social one .
Voters typically were more interested in economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their platforms accordingly .
The culture was what it was , and if there were changes in it , they were largely out of the control of the politicians .
By the 1960s , that had begun to change .
Some of the cultural shift had been brewing for a while .
We think of the 1960s as the time when everything became different , but that probably reflects the contemporary bias of those who lived through that decade ; many historians point to the 1910s and 1920s as the first Sexual Revolution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the sexes began to break down .
Likewise , the hippies of the ‘ 60s were preceded by the beatniks of the ‘ 40s .
In those days , though , the countercultural currents remained subcurrents of the American mainstream .
In the second Sexual Revolution , they broke through to the surface .
Or , at least , they appeared to do so .
Early counterculture centered on the rich and upper-middle class , but if the later version started there , it did not remain .
Mass media , written and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , projected the ideas they observed among their own as though they were becoming standard , the forefront of the new American culture .
Many people did not recognize the country they saw on the evening news .
Vast cultural changes like this contributed to what Scammon and Wattenberg called “ the Social Issue ” that began to displace “ the Economic Issue ” in determining voters ’ choices .
Factors contributing to the prominence of the Social Issue included rising crime , increasing violence in protests , campus unrest and the counterculture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social values , and concern about the course of the Vietnam War .
None of these was in itself a massive change , but taken together , they added up to a disorienting shift in the average American ’ s world .
In the lifetimes of the authors and readers of The Real Majority , elections had not been fought on these lines .
Taxes , tariffs , the gold standard , and other economic arguments had dominated the political landscape for decades .
Perhaps this was because in a country ( and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poor , jobs and money are paramount considerations .
By 1970 , many Americans had joined the middle class and were comfortable enough to consider less immediate worries .
That trend continues today , when social issues often rise to the top of voters ’ concerns .
For people outside the college campuses and urban media bubble , though , economic issues still matter .
Race was no small factor in the rise of the Social Issue , but as Scammon and Wattenberg note , the major changes to the once-prevailing system of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made .
“ The racial question has always been with America , ” they write , “ but in the last decade there has been a sharp , yet apparently paradoxical change in the perceptions that white Americans have of black Americans.
” What that change boiled down to was that there was widespread acceptance , for the first time , of the civil rights acts that demanded people of all races be treated equally under the law .
The sit-ins and school desegregation of the 1950s were winding down , and for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enough .
The riots that came later , in Watts , Detroit , and elsewhere , provoked a more apprehensive response .
The authors believed that “ at the same time that white fear and resentment were growing , white attitudes toward civil rights for blacks were probably liberalizing.
” Now , as then , the loudest opinions are spinning out toward the extremes and are taken as representative of the whole country .
We are constantly presented with an image of a world spinning out like William Butler Yeats ’ s widening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the center can not hold .
It looks like the second coming of the ‘ 60s , but observers today are missing the same thing they missed in Scammon and Wattenberg ’ s time : Even if anarchy is in the headlines , elections will be fought in the center , which is holding together just fine .
Consider the situation today , in which many marched in support for police reform after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May of this year but opposed the riots and violence that followed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Left call them racist for not embracing every new permutation of the so-called “ anti-racist ” agenda , while hardliners on the Right castigate them for giving in to any progressive demand .
But this is the opinion of the vast center .
David Shor , a liberal data scientist , tried to make this same point to his fellow lefties this year and was fired for it .
But in 1970 or in 2020 , that is the opinion of the center , and the center is where elections are decided .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the civil rights movement in 1968 , it was concentrated in the independent candidacy of Alabama Gov .
George Wallace .
This is , perhaps , the biggest difference between then and now , but for all the time the authors spend on the question of Wallace , his threat to the two-party system faded soon after their book was published .
Instead of forming a third party , voters used Wallace as a halfway point .
For conservative Democrats , especially in the South , voting for Wallace was their entry into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the country had long endorsed .
Their votes became ideological , and their ideology no longer had a home in the Democratic Party .
The far-left faction of the Democrats chalked up Wallace bolters ’ motivation to racism and nothing more .
And to be sure , many of them were motivated by precisely that .
But Scammon and Wattenberg believed that there were other motivations as well .
Asked whether they favored a return to “ strict segregation , ” 38 % of Wallace voters said `` yes . ''
These @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racist by any definition , as do the 11 % of Nixon voters and 9 % of Humphrey voters who answered the question affirmatively .
But on other questions , these voters were scattered along the left-right axis , as it is generally perceived .
The authors note that Wallace voters were “ to the right of Republicans on race , law and order , and big government — the Social Issues .
But they [ were ] to the left of Republicans on the bread-and-butter Economic Issues.
” It is easy to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Wallace voters had backward racial ideas , which caused members of their erstwhile party to paint them as all racist , to the exclusion of other motivations .
But there is a through line of socially conservative , economically liberal voters from Wallace to today ’ s working-class Democrats .
The 2020 version of this voter must increasingly feel at home with the Republican Party of Donald Trump and Josh Hawley and repelled by a Democratic Party that turns on the Wall Street-Silicon Valley axis .
Scammon and Wattenberg described the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ understand immediately : “ Under the banner of New Politics there is talk of forming a new coalition of the left , composed of the young , the black , the poor , the well educated , the socially alienated , minority groups , and intellectuals — while relegating Middle America and especially white union labor to the ranks of ‘ racists.
’ ” The authors believed this stratagem to be worse than electoral fool ’ s gold .
“ The march of the left-leaning Democrats must certainly yield up a prize of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; perhaps we might call it jackass pyrite , ” they wrote .
But if there is any cry that is universal in politics , it is that “ this time is different.
” Those on the Left who believe it often cite some version of the “ demographics is destiny ” argument , saying that changes in the population mean that this time , at last , the radical coalition can win .
But Scammon and Wattenberg anticipate this argument ; indeed , they are the ones who coined the phrase in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ picked up on the triumphalist argument .
In 2013 , Ronald Brownstein renamed those under the banner of New Politics the “ coalition of the ascendent.
” But then , as now , the demography in question shows a vast center of the country that does not fall into one of these groups .
Barack Obama was not elected as the vanguard of the new radicalism but rather because he was seen as a centrist , a conciliator , and distinctly not a representative of the radical Left .
Despite a few gaffes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he worked hard to maintain that image .
Democrats who want to recreate the Obama coalition ( itself formed from the remnants of the FDR coalition ) would do well to remember that it included a great many people from the political center .
Joe Biden appears to know this , which is why he consistently downplays radical ideas , such as the Green New Deal , and dissembles regarding others , such as court-packing .
For every screaming socialist on Twitter , there are dozens of center-left , center-right , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump but will also not join in the full dismantling of the American system that radicals desire .
But , as in 1970 , the real beneficiary of the authors ’ advice would seem to be their opponents .
How we select candidates has changed since 1968 and is now almost entirely a product of primary elections .
Will the Democrats , whose base is increasingly enamored of socialism , continue to choose candidates who can compete for the center ?
In 2020 , they have done so , largely through the votes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issues are closer to the center than the woke would-be ascendants .
If they continue down this path , they will do what the 1972 party of George McGovern could not , but it will require snubbing the loudest , most active cohort in their electorate .
Republicans are also controlled by the primary voters , but in endorsing Trump , the new Republican base set the party on a nonideological course .
Trump is not a centrist in the sense of one who unites the parties .
In a polarized time , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the other hand , do align with the socially conservative , fiscally liberal views held by independents for decades .
His version of centrism is not nonideological but a reshuffled ideology , a combination of views that did not fit entirely on the Right or Left in the old system .
That is a centrism of a sort , and welcoming to a voting bloc that has been ignored by both parties for decades .
It was not enough , in 2020 , to pull him over the finish line for a second @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Along with the Economic Issue and the Social Issue , a new Temperament Issue motivates a great many voters , especially when one candidate ’ s unusual temperament is so fully on display through social media .
But ideologically , Trump may have laid a path that puts his party , if not himself , on the path toward dominating the center .
Whether either party can learn from The Real Majority depends on whether a party can even be said to learn at all , anymore .
Because of how we select @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” to advice if their voters listen to it .
Temperamentally , if not politically , Biden is of the center , and Delaware was a swing state when he was first elected to public office .
He may have even read The Real Majority , which was released that same year .
Working with a Republican Senate may return him to his centrist roots .
But as the post-election recriminations bear out , some congressional Democrats in 2020 are blind to the problem , or else completely at the mercy of primary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ centrist voters .
After losing seats in the House , House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn cautioned his caucus against radicalism , warning that if “ we are going to run on Medicare for All , defund the police , socialized medicine , we 're not going to win . ''
Far-left members rejected the advice as loudly as ever .
Richard Scammon died in 2001 , and Ben Wattenberg followed him in 2015 .
We can not know their views on the 2020 election or its candidates .
But both parties should consider @ @ @ @ @ @ @ book : “ We recommend to would-be leaders of the people that they trust the people and listen to the people before they lead the people .
Listen to the center before leading the center.
” Kyle Sammin is a lawyer and writer from Pennsylvania and the co-host of the Conservative Minds podcast .
Follow him on Twitter at @ KyleSammin .

Political tension is high. The major parties face a realignment, while the nation struggles with protests, riots, and rising crime. Democrats are divided over whether to embrace the new radical demands of an energized far-left faction or to keep to the traditional values of the coalition built by Franklin D. Roosevelt, which has sustained them for decades.
That was the American political scene in 1970, when Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg wrote The Real Majority: An Extraordinary Examination of the American Electorate. It is also the scene today, 50 years later. Scammon and Wattenberg’s book was a bestseller and the best examination of the rising Silent Majority. Many in that majority were former Democrats, repelled by their ancestral party’s growing radical fringe, who found a home in what would become Richard Nixon’s vast supermajority in 1972.
As we assess the results of the 2020 elections, we find ourselves in a similar place. The Democrats face a repetition of their polarizing choices. The Real Majority is relevant again and has lessons for both parties, if they are willing to listen. Foremost among these: The radicals appear to have the energy and momentum, but elections are won and policy is made at the center.
Scammon and Wattenberg were both Democrats in 1970 and wrote the book as advice to their own party, but it proved more useful to the other side. Nixon had already begun to emphasize the Silent Majority theme by then, and The Real Majority fleshed out the idea with psephological rigor. The authors contended that the New Deal coalition was splintering, threatening the decadeslong dominance of the Democratic Party.
That resonated with Nixon. He was among the "me-too" Republicans of the 1950s who had made peace with FDR’s expansion of government rather than continue the increasingly futile effort to roll it back. Nixon, like Dwight Eisenhower before him, knew that votes and policy were made in the center, not at the hardcore edges of either ideology.
The New Deal, in the authors’ telling, was an economic shift but not a social one. Voters typically were more interested in economic issues then, and both parties organized their platforms accordingly. The culture was what it was, and if there were changes in it, they were largely out of the control of the politicians.
By the 1960s, that had begun to change. Some of the cultural shift had been brewing for a while. We think of the 1960s as the time when everything became different, but that probably reflects the contemporary bias of those who lived through that decade; many historians point to the 1910s and 1920s as the first Sexual Revolution, when Victorian-era customs about interaction between the sexes began to break down. Likewise, the hippies of the ‘60s were preceded by the beatniks of the ‘40s. In those days, though, the countercultural currents remained subcurrents of the American mainstream. In the second Sexual Revolution, they broke through to the surface.
Or, at least, they appeared to do so. Early counterculture centered on the rich and upper-middle class, but if the later version started there, it did not remain. Mass media, written and published by members of those same classes, projected the ideas they observed among their own as though they were becoming standard, the forefront of the new American culture. Many people did not recognize the country they saw on the evening news.
Vast cultural changes like this contributed to what Scammon and Wattenberg called “the Social Issue” that began to displace “the Economic Issue” in determining voters’ choices. Factors contributing to the prominence of the Social Issue included rising crime, increasing violence in protests, campus unrest and the counterculture there, a reaction against more permissive social values, and concern about the course of the Vietnam War. None of these was in itself a massive change, but taken together, they added up to a disorienting shift in the average American’s world.
In the lifetimes of the authors and readers of The Real Majority, elections had not been fought on these lines. Taxes, tariffs, the gold standard, and other economic arguments had dominated the political landscape for decades. Perhaps this was because in a country (and a world) where most people were poor, jobs and money are paramount considerations. By 1970, many Americans had joined the middle class and were comfortable enough to consider less immediate worries. That trend continues today, when social issues often rise to the top of voters’ concerns. For people outside the college campuses and urban media bubble, though, economic issues still matter.
Race was no small factor in the rise of the Social Issue, but as Scammon and Wattenberg note, the major changes to the once-prevailing system of segregation in the South had already been made. “The racial question has always been with America,” they write, “but in the last decade there has been a sharp, yet apparently paradoxical change in the perceptions that white Americans have of black Americans.”
What that change boiled down to was that there was widespread acceptance, for the first time, of the civil rights acts that demanded people of all races be treated equally under the law. The sit-ins and school desegregation of the 1950s were winding down, and for many, that was good — and enough. The riots that came later, in Watts, Detroit, and elsewhere, provoked a more apprehensive response. The authors believed that “at the same time that white fear and resentment were growing, white attitudes toward civil rights for blacks were probably liberalizing.”
Now, as then, the loudest opinions are spinning out toward the extremes and are taken as representative of the whole country. We are constantly presented with an image of a world spinning out like William Butler Yeats’s widening gyre, where things fall apart and the center cannot hold. It looks like the second coming of the ‘60s, but observers today are missing the same thing they missed in Scammon and Wattenberg’s time: Even if anarchy is in the headlines, elections will be fought in the center, which is holding together just fine.
Consider the situation today, in which many marched in support for police reform after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May of this year but opposed the riots and violence that followed the once-peaceful protests. Extremists on the Left call them racist for not embracing every new permutation of the so-called “anti-racist” agenda, while hardliners on the Right castigate them for giving in to any progressive demand. But this is the opinion of the vast center. David Shor, a liberal data scientist, tried to make this same point to his fellow lefties this year and was fired for it. But in 1970 or in 2020, that is the opinion of the center, and the center is where elections are decided.
To the extent there was backlash against the civil rights movement in 1968, it was concentrated in the independent candidacy of Alabama Gov. George Wallace. This is, perhaps, the biggest difference between then and now, but for all the time the authors spend on the question of Wallace, his threat to the two-party system faded soon after their book was published. Instead of forming a third party, voters used Wallace as a halfway point. For conservative Democrats, especially in the South, voting for Wallace was their entry into the post-Civil War order that the rest of the country had long endorsed. Their votes became ideological, and their ideology no longer had a home in the Democratic Party.
The far-left faction of the Democrats chalked up Wallace bolters’ motivation to racism and nothing more. And to be sure, many of them were motivated by precisely that. But Scammon and Wattenberg believed that there were other motivations as well. Asked whether they favored a return to “strict segregation,” 38% of Wallace voters said "yes." These voters’ motivations have to be considered racist by any definition, as do the 11% of Nixon voters and 9% of Humphrey voters who answered the question affirmatively.
But on other questions, these voters were scattered along the left-right axis, as it is generally perceived. The authors note that Wallace voters were “to the right of Republicans on race, law and order, and big government — the Social Issues. But they [were] to the left of Republicans on the bread-and-butter Economic Issues.”
It is easy to see the parallels to today. Some of the Wallace voters had backward racial ideas, which caused members of their erstwhile party to paint them as all racist, to the exclusion of other motivations. But there is a through line of socially conservative, economically liberal voters from Wallace to today’s working-class Democrats. The 2020 version of this voter must increasingly feel at home with the Republican Party of Donald Trump and Josh Hawley and repelled by a Democratic Party that turns on the Wall Street-Silicon Valley axis.
Scammon and Wattenberg described the question in terms that 2020 readers would understand immediately: “Under the banner of New Politics there is talk of forming a new coalition of the left, composed of the young, the black, the poor, the well educated, the socially alienated, minority groups, and intellectuals — while relegating Middle America and especially white union labor to the ranks of ‘racists.’” The authors believed this stratagem to be worse than electoral fool’s gold. “The march of the left-leaning Democrats must certainly yield up a prize of some new, even baser political non-metal; perhaps we might call it jackass pyrite,” they wrote.
But if there is any cry that is universal in politics, it is that “this time is different.” Those on the Left who believe it often cite some version of the “demographics is destiny” argument, saying that changes in the population mean that this time, at last, the radical coalition can win. But Scammon and Wattenberg anticipate this argument; indeed, they are the ones who coined the phrase in the first place.
Modern Democrats have picked up on the triumphalist argument. In 2013, Ronald Brownstein renamed those under the banner of New Politics the “coalition of the ascendent.” But then, as now, the demography in question shows a vast center of the country that does not fall into one of these groups. Barack Obama was not elected as the vanguard of the new radicalism but rather because he was seen as a centrist, a conciliator, and distinctly not a representative of the radical Left. Despite a few gaffes of the “bitter clinger” nature, he worked hard to maintain that image.
Democrats who want to recreate the Obama coalition (itself formed from the remnants of the FDR coalition) would do well to remember that it included a great many people from the political center. Joe Biden appears to know this, which is why he consistently downplays radical ideas, such as the Green New Deal, and dissembles regarding others, such as court-packing. For every screaming socialist on Twitter, there are dozens of center-left, center-right, and center-center voters who are not crazy about Trump but will also not join in the full dismantling of the American system that radicals desire. But, as in 1970, the real beneficiary of the authors’ advice would seem to be their opponents.
How we select candidates has changed since 1968 and is now almost entirely a product of primary elections. Will the Democrats, whose base is increasingly enamored of socialism, continue to choose candidates who can compete for the center? In 2020, they have done so, largely through the votes of black Southerners whose opinions on social issues are closer to the center than the woke would-be ascendants. If they continue down this path, they will do what the 1972 party of George McGovern could not, but it will require snubbing the loudest, most active cohort in their electorate.
Republicans are also controlled by the primary voters, but in endorsing Trump, the new Republican base set the party on a nonideological course. Trump is not a centrist in the sense of one who unites the parties. In a polarized time, few are. His politics, on the other hand, do align with the socially conservative, fiscally liberal views held by independents for decades. His version of centrism is not nonideological but a reshuffled ideology, a combination of views that did not fit entirely on the Right or Left in the old system. That is a centrism of a sort, and welcoming to a voting bloc that has been ignored by both parties for decades.
It was not enough, in 2020, to pull him over the finish line for a second time, though it came close. Along with the Economic Issue and the Social Issue, a new Temperament Issue motivates a great many voters, especially when one candidate’s unusual temperament is so fully on display through social media. But ideologically, Trump may have laid a path that puts his party, if not himself, on the path toward dominating the center.
Whether either party can learn from The Real Majority depends on whether a party can even be said to learn at all, anymore. Because of how we select nominees, parties can only “listen” to advice if their voters listen to it. Temperamentally, if not politically, Biden is of the center, and Delaware was a swing state when he was first elected to public office. He may have even read The Real Majority, which was released that same year. Working with a Republican Senate may return him to his centrist roots.
But as the post-election recriminations bear out, some congressional Democrats in 2020 are blind to the problem, or else completely at the mercy of primary voters who show no interest in accommodating centrist voters. After losing seats in the House, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn cautioned his caucus against radicalism, warning that if “we are going to run on Medicare for All, defund the police, socialized medicine, we're not going to win." Far-left members rejected the advice as loudly as ever.
Richard Scammon died in 2001, and Ben Wattenberg followed him in 2015. We cannot know their views on the 2020 election or its candidates. But both parties should consider the advice with which they closed their book: “We recommend to would-be leaders of the people that they trust the people and listen to the people before they lead the people. Listen to the center before leading the center.”
Kyle Sammin is a lawyer and writer from Pennsylvania and the co-host of the Conservative Minds podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @KyleSammin.


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-11-13--New York's John Katko keeps House seat despite tough challenge from Democrat

Rep. John Katko will stay in the House after a tough Democratic challenge against Syracuse University professor Dana Balter .
After a close race that had been pending since Election Day , Balter conceded to the Republican incumbent on Friday evening .
`` The current absentee ballot count makes it clear that our campaign does not have a path forward , '' Balter said in a statement .
`` Today , I congratulate Congressman Katko on his victory and hope that in his next term , he will advocate for policies that will help working families in this district .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ elected to the House in 2014 and had beat Balter in 2018 , when she first challenged him for his seat .
Katko is viewed as a centrist Republican representing a district won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 .
The race was viewed by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report as being competitive but slightly in favor of Katko .
Katko has at times strayed from President Trump , but he openly endorsed the president in this election , a change from 2016 , when he did not back the unconventional GOP presidential nominee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support for Trump to hurt his reelection chances and turn some independent and centrist Democrats away from the GOP lawmaker .
Katko 's win can put Republicans at ease to hold on to another House seat , in another outcome that has defied pollsters predictions of a dwindling congressional presence for the GOP .
Republicans have flipped several House seats in the general election , surprising analysts who expected Democrats to net between 10 to 15 seats .

Rep. John Katko will stay in the House after a tough Democratic challenge against Syracuse University professor Dana Balter.
After a close race that had been pending since Election Day, Balter conceded to the Republican incumbent on Friday evening.
"The current absentee ballot count makes it clear that our campaign does not have a path forward," Balter said in a statement. "Today, I congratulate Congressman Katko on his victory and hope that in his next term, he will advocate for policies that will help working families in this district."
Katko, 57, was first elected to the House in 2014 and had beat Balter in 2018, when she first challenged him for his seat. Katko is viewed as a centrist Republican representing a district won by Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The race was viewed by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report as being competitive but slightly in favor of Katko.
Katko has at times strayed from President Trump, but he openly endorsed the president in this election, a change from 2016, when he did not back the unconventional GOP presidential nominee.
Political analysts expected Katko's newfound support for Trump to hurt his reelection chances and turn some independent and centrist Democrats away from the GOP lawmaker.
Katko's win can put Republicans at ease to hold on to another House seat, in another outcome that has defied pollsters predictions of a dwindling congressional presence for the GOP. Republicans have flipped several House seats in the general election, surprising analysts who expected Democrats to net between 10 to 15 seats.


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-11-13--Arizona legislators float special session to authorize election audit

A handful of Arizona Republican lawmakers called on Republican Gov .
Doug Ducey to convene a special session in the state Legislature in order to authorize an audit of election administration in the state .
`` The Legislature would have to be called back in to session to deal with this issue , by Governor @ dougducey , '' state Rep. and state Sen.-elect Kelly Townsend said in a tweet on Wednesday .
`` There is no time to waste . ''
The message came alongside an article about the secretary of state rejecting a request for an independent audit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President Karen Fann , a Republican , asked Arizona 's Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs earlier this week to authorize an independent review of the voting machines used in the case .
Hobbs , who has previously accused Trump of being `` on the side of the freaking Nazis '' and said that much of what happened at his rallies was `` deplorable , '' denied that request .
Republicans control both chambers of the Arizona Legislature .
A Thursday night posting of ballots in Arizona showed President-elect Joe Biden leading President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The secretary of state 's office estimates that 10,315 ballots have yet to be counted , giving Trump no chance of pulling ahead of Biden and prompting numerous news outlet decision desks to project that Biden will win the state 's 11 Electoral College votes .
The ballot dump on Thursday rendered a narrowly focused Trump campaign lawsuit attempting to uncover more votes for Trump moot .
The Arizona Republican Party filed another lawsuit on Thursday attempting to adjust how Maricopa County , the most populous county in the state , performed a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were tabulated correctly .
Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar , a Republican representing the state 's 4th Congressional District , has also called on Ducey to call the state Legislature back into session .
Trump is resting his hopes of tipping the state in his direction on an audit of the votes in Arizona .
`` Arizona — it 'll be down to 8,000 votes , and if we can do an audit of the millions of votes , we 'll find 8,000 votes easy .
If we can do an audit , we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' Trump told the Washington Examiner on Thursday .

A handful of Arizona Republican lawmakers called on Republican Gov. Doug Ducey to convene a special session in the state Legislature in order to authorize an audit of election administration in the state.
"The Legislature would have to be called back in to session to deal with this issue, by Governor @dougducey," state Rep. and state Sen.-elect Kelly Townsend said in a tweet on Wednesday. "There is no time to waste."
The message came alongside an article about the secretary of state rejecting a request for an independent audit of the election.
Arizona State Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican, asked Arizona's Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs earlier this week to authorize an independent review of the voting machines used in the case.
Hobbs, who has previously accused Trump of being "on the side of the freaking Nazis" and said that much of what happened at his rallies was "deplorable," denied that request.
Fann retweeted Townsend's message floating a special legislative session.
Republicans control both chambers of the Arizona Legislature.
A Thursday night posting of ballots in Arizona showed President-elect Joe Biden leading President Trump by 11,434 votes in Arizona. The secretary of state's office estimates that 10,315 ballots have yet to be counted, giving Trump no chance of pulling ahead of Biden and prompting numerous news outlet decision desks to project that Biden will win the state's 11 Electoral College votes.
The ballot dump on Thursday rendered a narrowly focused Trump campaign lawsuit attempting to uncover more votes for Trump moot. The Arizona Republican Party filed another lawsuit on Thursday attempting to adjust how Maricopa County, the most populous county in the state, performed a hand-count of ballots to verify that they were tabulated correctly.
Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, a Republican representing the state's 4th Congressional District, has also called on Ducey to call the state Legislature back into session.
1. I am calling on @dougducey to call a special session of the AZ Legislature under Article IV of our state constitution to investigate the accuracy and reliability of the Dominion ballot software and its impact on our general election. @Leo4AzHouse @FannKfann — Paul Gosar (@DrPaulGosar) November 7, 2020
Trump is resting his hopes of tipping the state in his direction on an audit of the votes in Arizona.
"Arizona — it'll be down to 8,000 votes, and if we can do an audit of the millions of votes, we'll find 8,000 votes easy. If we can do an audit, we'll be in good shape there," Trump told the Washington Examiner on Thursday.


thewashingtonexaminer--2020-11-13--Trump legal effort in Arizona fails as lawsuit rendered moot

President Trump 's campaign abandoned its attempt to find more votes for the president in Arizona through a lawsuit concerning about 191 ballots that it wanted to be reviewed .
The move on Friday comes one day after a six-hour court hearing about the case and after additional ballots tabulated Thursday made it clear that the campaign 's request would be inconsequential to final presidential election results in the state .
`` Since the close of yesterday ’ s hearing , the tabulation of votes statewide has rendered unnecessary a judicial ruling as to the presidential electors , '' attorney @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , said in a notice of partial mootness about the lawsuit filed Friday .
What started as a lawsuit based on a now-debunked theory that bleed-through from Sharpie markers caused widespread tabulation errors in how ballots were counted in Maricopa County , the most populous county in the state , turned into a narrowly-focused case about a small number of ballots .
At issue was whether some in-person Election Day voters ' ballots were improperly pushed through a tabulation machine by pressing a `` green button '' after being flagged as having a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that had an `` overvote , '' when a selection was made for multiple candidates in a contest rather than just one , causing no vote to be recorded for that contest .
The Trump campaign 's lawyer requested that if the canvass results of any state race end up being larger than the margin of the leading candidate that the overvote ballots be allowed to be inspected and checked to ensure that votes for president were correctly tabulated .
At the time of Thursday 's hearing , only 191 ballots in Maricopa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the presidential contest .
A Thursday night ballot posting in Arizona expanded President-elect Joe Biden 's lead over Trump to 11,434 votes .
The secretary of state 's office estimates that 10,315 ballots have yet to be counted , meaning that even if Trump won every one of the 10,315 ballots , Biden 's lead would sit at 1,119 — well above the 191-vote margin for the lawsuit to matter in the race .
Lanhghofer , in the Thursday hearing , called the lawsuit a `` relatively boring an anodyne case about the @ @ @ @ @ @

President Trump's campaign abandoned its attempt to find more votes for the president in Arizona through a lawsuit concerning about 191 ballots that it wanted to be reviewed.
The move on Friday comes one day after a six-hour court hearing about the case and after additional ballots tabulated Thursday made it clear that the campaign's request would be inconsequential to final presidential election results in the state.
"Since the close of yesterday’s hearing, the tabulation of votes statewide has rendered unnecessary a judicial ruling as to the presidential electors," attorney for the Trump campaign, Kory Langhofer, said in a notice of partial mootness about the lawsuit filed Friday.
What started as a lawsuit based on a now-debunked theory that bleed-through from Sharpie markers caused widespread tabulation errors in how ballots were counted in Maricopa County, the most populous county in the state, turned into a narrowly-focused case about a small number of ballots.
At issue was whether some in-person Election Day voters' ballots were improperly pushed through a tabulation machine by pressing a "green button" after being flagged as having a problem. The green-button direction processed ballots that had an "overvote," when a selection was made for multiple candidates in a contest rather than just one, causing no vote to be recorded for that contest.
The Trump campaign's lawyer requested that if the canvass results of any state race end up being larger than the margin of the leading candidate that the overvote ballots be allowed to be inspected and checked to ensure that votes for president were correctly tabulated.
At the time of Thursday's hearing, only 191 ballots in Maricopa County had been recorded as overvotes in the presidential contest.
A Thursday night ballot posting in Arizona expanded President-elect Joe Biden's lead over Trump to 11,434 votes. The secretary of state's office estimates that 10,315 ballots have yet to be counted, meaning that even if Trump won every one of the 10,315 ballots, Biden's lead would sit at 1,119 — well above the 191-vote margin for the lawsuit to matter in the race.
Lanhghofer, in the Thursday hearing, called the lawsuit a "relatively boring an anodyne case about the proper procedures being followed."