Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Squirrel!




In two of their last three presidential election victories, Republicans failed to win the popular vote but prevailed by winning a majority of the Electoral College vote. So of course social media is full of outrage from Hillary supporters. There's at least one on-line petition where you can demand a change to the Constitution.

Good luck.

Eliminating the Electoral College is the Squirrel! of this post-election period. Republicans are in the majority in 32 state legislatures. Republican governors hold office in 33 states. The Republicans would like nothing more than to have Democrats go chasing after trying to get the Constitution changed.

David Brooks, who's kind of a conservative guy, thinks Donald Trump will be a 1-year president – that he will either resign or be impeached in his first year. That may be wishful thinking, but maybe you'll agree there's a pretty good chance everything will be FUBAR by the midterm election in 2018.

Whadaya think? Pretty good chance? We're certainly off to a good start, and Trump hasn't even taken office yet.

Well, in 2018 EVERY seat in the House of Representatives is up for grabs. Although Democrats hold 23 of the 33 Senate seats up that year (and are theoretically more vulnerable), this year's election shows pretty clearly that expectations can be wrong.

Thirty-six states will be holding gubernatorial elections.

Fifty states will be electing legislators.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) needs to make sure every Republican seat is contested, even if the chances of winning seem slim right now, and it needs to guarantee campaign assistance and resources. If they can get over the post-election blood-letting quickly, and show they finally understand what needs to be done, they should be able to make a good case for us to send some money their way.

In the four years leading up to Obama's 2008 victory, Howard Dean served as DNC chair. His 50-state strategy laid a lot of the groundwork for that historic win. Anybody at the DNC who doesn't think we need a 50-state strategy after this election is a Republican agent. [I'm lookin' at YOU, Terry McAuliffe!]

Howard Dean is willing to serve again. We should grab him.

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