Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Thursday, November 5, 2020

Yes, It's Nervewracking

 America's drawn out, inefficient, patchwork electoral system is aggravating in the best of times, but when so much is on the line...it's ulcer time.

The Biden camp was telling us weeks ago the election was closer than polls suggested. I figured they were just trying to keep their voters motivated. I was wrong. It was close. Of course, Biden is sitting on a 4,000,000 vote lead that will grow larger as CA, NY and IL finish counting their ballots, but that doesn't matter because America.

Nevertheless, the fact that Biden's numbers people were right about the election being close and are now saying it's in the bag, the fact that Trump is throwing an absolute fit, the fact that the Nate Silvers and Nate Cohns and Dave Wassermans are all saying, "I can't really say that Biden will win Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, but..." I think tells us what the smart money knows.

Biden should win Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania and could win Georgia. The way things are going, I wouldn't be shocked if something crazy happened in North Carolina. If we look at Michigan, it tilted Red on election day, Biden is now leading by 3% or almost 150,000 votes. There is no reason to assume something similar won't happen in Philly/Pennsylvania.

I'm a Democrat. Of course I'm anxious and miserable. Being anxious and miserable is the default setting for Democrats since Florida 2000. Aside from a week or so in November, 2008, Democratic politics has been watching people agree with your policies and then vote for the guys who will try and destroy them. It's seeing the country as a whole turn Blue while the critical battlegrounds stay Red.

In the next few hours we will get massive vote dumps that should provide needed clarity. Until those votes are safely in hand, it's natural (if you're a Democrat) to be anxious as hell. The stakes are too high.

But I think they got this.

No comments: