Ask Americans about the job market, and you’ll typically get a good sense of economic sentiment. In 2021, that relationship has diverged. Americans like the jobs market a lot more than the overall economy. My @Morning_Joe chart: pic.twitter.com/hiZXyCPZ9I
— Steven Rattner (@SteveRattner) November 3, 2021
And so now we’ll hear the “bad news for Democrats” narrative ad nauseum. If it makes you feel any better, they’d say the same if McAuliffe won.
So depressing to know that Fox put Youngkin across the finish line with the Critical Race Theory bullshit. They ran at least one segment a day for the past month.
There are a lot of nagging issues that add up, and I’ve heard them all. For instance: Why is Louis DeJoy still running the postal service? What has happened to all his documented conflicts of interest? Why is Biden not hounding the Republicans for an attempted coup? Why is the Department of Justice sending such mixed messages in the sentencing for those who took part? Why is nothing happening to the people at the top of the coup? Why isn’t Merrick Garland telling us what he’s doing?
The other is messaging. Now, you cannot discount the huge advantage of having a media property like Fox that will repeat and amplify whatever batshit talking point Republicans manufacture, and now CNN and MSNBC are jumping on the bandwagon because they sure do miss those Trump ratings. The Republicans have that. So anything I say has to be seen in that light.
But our basic message is, hey, we’re just the cleanup crew. Again and again, we’re the people who come in and clean up the mess left behind by previous Republican administrations, and one of the biggest areas is the economy. But if you look at the polls, people still believe Republicans are better with the economy! Democrats tend to think results speak for themselves. They don’t. Most people aren’t economists. All they know is, gas is going up, groceries are going up, and they’re nervous.
And McAuliffe screwed up. Instead of talking about his past accomplishments as governor, he concentrated on tying Youngkin to Trump. But the Trump memories are fading, and all Youngkin had to do was look reasonable. He did.
For years, I’ve been talking about how Republicans are a successful sales and marketing culture, and Democrats are an academic culture: “Didn’t you see our white paper on this?” Democrats used to be able to sell their accomplishments and ideas. Now they speak in footnotes.
Establishment Democrats had a really bad day yesterday.
Clintonite Terry McAuliffe was a horrible, rotten, terrible, awful candidate who deserved to lose.
Hopefully McAuliffe and the rest of the Clintonites will now ride off into the sunset.
Trumpite Youngkin, who owes his governorship to autocratic oligarch David Rubenstein and his Fascist Carlyle Group, will now have six months to show all of us what he’s actually up to.
Murphy of New Jersey’s problem was his heavy handedness during the Covid pandemic and his close relationship with the sex maniac (you don’t suppose he did business with Epstein do you?) ex-governor Andrew Cuomo.
But it was the shadow of Conservative, corporatist Joe Manchin and his mini-me Krysten Sinema which loomed large over yesterdays election.
Democrats in congress couldn’t get anything done in time to save McAuliffe’s political ass not because of the obstinacy of Progressives.
But because the plan hatched by Establishment Democrats to sink Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion human infrastructure bill failed miserably.
The inability to get anything done in congress, the defeat of McAuliffe in Virginia, and the near disaster in New Jersey can all be laid directly at the feet of corporatist, Establishment Democrats Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema.