November 02, 2021
Voting Day Observations
As some of you know, I live in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the current elections in which, is, at the moment, the focus of a great deal of attention from national pundits as it is assumed to be a bellweather.
As they are constitutionally mandated to happen every other odd numbered year, Virginia's elections are not just 'off year' elections, they are double secret off-year elections.
Turnout tends to be even lower than the turnout in non-presidential federal elections we have on alternating even numbered years.
I've been voting since 1988, and I have NEVER seen a line at the polls stretching out into the rain on an off year, let alone a state election. That was the case this afternoon.
I was pleased to see that the dems had not removed all the Republican election signs from outside the polling place as is their habit. It IS possible that they were simply replaced, by Republican poll-workers but there was no pile of Republican election signs at the usual spot in my neighborhood.
To my surprise, Deanna Stanton, the Republican Candidate for the local house of delegates seat was just outside the "no campaigning line" actively greeting people in the parking lot and handing out sample ballots...which helped in identifying who to vote for for school board as school board elections and candidate positions are notoriously opaque and their party affiliation is , by law, not listed on the ballot.
In this blue district she has a snowballs chance in a blast furnace, but it was nice to see a Republican with pluck and verve making a go of it.
Despite much hyperventilation , and McCaullif's odious nature, I'm not optimistic.
Democrats are like tonail fungus in that when you get them in control of your government they are almost impossible to get rid of. They put in place laws district borders and pollworkers to ensure their perpetuation. They also have undeniable appeal to a segment of the electorate:
Enthusiasm is certainly very high in this blue city.
Still, it's good to see people care enough to vote in one of these off-year elections.
There were reports of pollworkers turning people away for not wearing masks, which is illegal and was overturned this afternoon, but damage was still done that adds to the institutional headwinds faced by Youngkin and company.
I'm not very optimistic, but in a couple of hours we'll know.
UPDATE: It's been a couple of hours...we know nothing. Mcauliffe did not concede and instead noted that they had lots of votes to count, before walking off the stage with a Cheshire Cat grin on his face. In most definitely unrelated news, Fairfax, the most populous county in the state announced that they have had "difficulties" and won't know anything for a while. Youngkin has a comfortable lead that will soon be firm enough to establish how many votes will be needed to be found in Fairfax to catch up.
UPDATE 03:55: The new York Times is calling it for Youngkin.
Neither is particularly anxious to make such a call, so I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm tired so I'm going to bed, and hope I'm not disappointed when I wake up.
UPDATE: McAuliffe conceded! Bill Clinton's bag-man and bundler, the guy who set Virginia on a path that has seen it circling the drain for the last 8 years, has finally thrown in the towel. There is a chance, however slim, of turning this around.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
06:27 PM
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1
Ace has the flaming skull up. Looking good at this point.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tue Nov 2 20:45:37 2021 (PiXy!)
2
I am surprised that the Dems actually seem to care about being seen stealing elections this year, given they did not give a damn last year.
Ace did have a screen capture of a Usual Suspect, using the CNN exit poll, saying how 'only' 30% of Hispanics voting GOP is a good thing for the Democrats. I guess it is objectively true (It is, after all, proving that Hispanics are not overwhelming supporting the GOP.) but it should be very ominous to the Usual Suspects.
Ace did have a screen capture of a Usual Suspect, using the CNN exit poll, saying how 'only' 30% of Hispanics voting GOP is a good thing for the Democrats. I guess it is objectively true (It is, after all, proving that Hispanics are not overwhelming supporting the GOP.) but it should be very ominous to the Usual Suspects.
Posted by: cxt217 at Tue Nov 2 22:53:58 2021 (MuaLM)
3
It's weird.
After 2020, hindisght suggests that the Dems were cheating a /lot/. AS in, much more than you would expect from putting together the pieces around Segregation, additionally drawing conclusions about the consent decree, and considering the reputations of the big machine cities.
Old Dem logic seems to be that refusing to accept any losses queers the grift.
New Dem logic appeared very much to be a communist type 'we have the thousand year reich now, time to start murdering, and stop worrying about elections'.
Is this remnant old Dems, with enough pull now to try to return to the old con?
Not important?
A ruse to lull us for some other end game?
Waiting for Friday despite the concession?
The Dem in this race appears to be disciplined enough and loyal to the aprty enough to follow orders to accept a loss.
Maybe he simply doesn't have enough pull to wrangle what was wrangled for last time. Maybe last time was foreign influence, and said influence doesn't see this as worth caring about.
Biden is clearly someone Obama sees as a proxy. Is Virginia internal politics against the Clinton faction? Internal politics /inside/ the Clinton faction?
The basic issue, current regime is a gamble, and seems to have a lot of delusional thinking, and threats it cannot easily deliver on or bluffs. And the bluffs are important internally, if only to keep people not deeply implicated in the gamble from deciding the stakes are too rich and trying to defect.
Failing this steal would be a sign of weakness, and could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Of course, so could spendign too much to 'win' this one. The effers have got themselves into a game where they cannot calculate the failure point of things, and at the same time they are deeply convinced that they have a reliable predictive theory, and that it shows them winning.
So, I really dunno what just happened.
After 2020, hindisght suggests that the Dems were cheating a /lot/. AS in, much more than you would expect from putting together the pieces around Segregation, additionally drawing conclusions about the consent decree, and considering the reputations of the big machine cities.
Old Dem logic seems to be that refusing to accept any losses queers the grift.
New Dem logic appeared very much to be a communist type 'we have the thousand year reich now, time to start murdering, and stop worrying about elections'.
Is this remnant old Dems, with enough pull now to try to return to the old con?
Not important?
A ruse to lull us for some other end game?
Waiting for Friday despite the concession?
The Dem in this race appears to be disciplined enough and loyal to the aprty enough to follow orders to accept a loss.
Maybe he simply doesn't have enough pull to wrangle what was wrangled for last time. Maybe last time was foreign influence, and said influence doesn't see this as worth caring about.
Biden is clearly someone Obama sees as a proxy. Is Virginia internal politics against the Clinton faction? Internal politics /inside/ the Clinton faction?
The basic issue, current regime is a gamble, and seems to have a lot of delusional thinking, and threats it cannot easily deliver on or bluffs. And the bluffs are important internally, if only to keep people not deeply implicated in the gamble from deciding the stakes are too rich and trying to defect.
Failing this steal would be a sign of weakness, and could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Of course, so could spendign too much to 'win' this one. The effers have got themselves into a game where they cannot calculate the failure point of things, and at the same time they are deeply convinced that they have a reliable predictive theory, and that it shows them winning.
So, I really dunno what just happened.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Wed Nov 3 23:05:12 2021 (r9O5h)
4
Maybe we are seeing the effects of the Democrat Party/White House civil war - with at least five sides fully engaged - spilling out into real world effects. Although, that would support the 'Don't care that people know they are cheating anymore, no matter the scale" argument, so...
Posted by: cxt217 at Thu Nov 4 22:28:51 2021 (MuaLM)
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