RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-bipartisan-schedule-for-presidential-primaries-south-carolina-nomination-process-election-race-voters-11670350936?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Democrats have proposed to make the South Carolina primary the first contest in their presidential nomination process, supplanting Iowa and New Hampshire. The problem is that they plan to do so using racial criteria, to “ensure that voters of color have a voice in choosing our nominee much earlier in the process,” as President Biden put it in a letter to the Democratic National Committee last week: “You cannot be the Democratic nominee and win a general election unless you have overwhelming support from voters of color.”

Since that isn’t true of the Republicans, they’re unlikely to use the same criteria or the same schedule. This would be a logistical problem, especially in states that allow independent or crossover voting, where voters can choose on Election Day in which primary to cast a ballot.

Democrats have a point that the process could benefit from some updating, but how about using a rules-based approach? The first primary could go to the state with the closest race in the previous presidential election. In 2024 that would be Georgia, where Mr. Biden won by 0.2% in 2020. Next could be Arizona, where Mr. Biden won by 0.3%, or North Carolina, where Donald Trump won by 1.3%.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/unpopular-biden-desperately-wants-democrats-primary-season-south-carolina

President Joe Biden just pulled a fast one on Pete Buttigieg.

And… on Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Gavin Newsom and other Democrat hopefuls who might (despite vows to the contrary) be planning to challenge Joe Biden in 2024. 

The president’s political gurus are trying to upend the party’s primary schedule – knocking out Iowa and New Hampshire as leaders of the selection process and moving South Carolina, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan earlier in the calendar. Those changes would seriously disadvantage those potential 2024 candidates and several others. 

But, the revised plan would – surprise! — make Joe Biden a shoo-in by prioritizing states with large Black populations. Democrats should beware: the boost to Biden and emphasis on African-American voters could backfire.

Joe Biden has been taking a victory lap recently, taking credit for his party’s unexpectedly strong showing in the midterm elections. But it is notable that the president personally had little involvement in those races; numerous candidates eschewed his participation, concerned that his low approval ratings might prove contagious.

Even now, Biden is a no-show in Georgia, where incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock is battling Republican Hershel Walker to retain his seat. Barack Obama is campaigning in Georgia, but not Biden.

Ignored midst the giddiness over the GOP’s poor showing in the midterms is that Biden remains deeply unpopular. Real Clear Politics puts the president’s average approval rating at 41%; a recent Quinnipiac poll shows his favorability at 36%. 

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2022/12/06/georgia-senate-runoff-n2616800

After neither incumbent Democrat Senator Raphael Warnock nor Trump-endorsed GOP challenger Herschel Walker received more than 50 percent of the vote on Election Day in November, the two faced off on Tuesday in a runoff election that saw Sen. Warnock prevail in his reelection bid according in a call that came less than three hours after the polls closed.

Throughout the night as votes were tallied, the lead see-sawed between the two candidates, with Walker leading for a while as day-of votes began to be counted and Warnock taking the lead back as counties around Atlanta reported more votes. 

Despite Walker’s performance among day-of voters, Warnock’s advantage among early and absentee voters kept the incumbent Democrat ahead of his GOP challenger even as turnout in Georgia’s runoff beat records in previous cycles — another repudiation of claims that Georgia’s election integrity law would disenfranchise voters and reduce participation in Peach State elections. 

Still, the outcome looks to be closer than the three percent margin that many analysts and pundits predicted in the Georgia runoff, meaning that Warnock did not run away with his reelection bid and was held closer than expected by Walker’s campaign, due in no small part to runoff campaign assistance from Gov. Brian Kemp following his reelection in November.

At the time Decision Desk HQ called the race, Warnock had 50.46 percent of the votes to Walker’s 49.54 percent with 83 percent of the estimated votes counted. As expected, Warnock led in the early vote by a not-insignificant margin, underscoring calls by some Republicans, contrary to what former President Donald Trump has said, for the GOP to ramp up its early voting efforts to prevent Democrats from running up leads like the one seen in Georgia Tuesday night. 

But for now at least, the 2022 midterm election cycle is finally, officially over — ending again in Georgia with a Senate runoff — the result of which puts the balance of power in the U.S. Senate at 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2022/12/how-to-win-elections-without-getting-most-votes/

In immigration law tribunals around the Anglosphere, a rule seems to have emerged that simplifies the business of guesstimating how cases involving either the entry or deportation of migrants or refugees will eventually be decided (even after many an appeal has been turned down): It ain’t over till the migrant wins.

Thus terrorists, rapists and career criminals are permitted to stay in once-peaceful countries because their right to a family life will be denied if their families won’t return to their country of origin along with them. (And amazingly enough, they won’t.) Even when governments strain to reject or deport them—and even have planes waiting on the tarmac to whisk them off to Rwanda or Nigeria—the labyrinthine coils of migration and “human rights” law somehow encircle their nervous systems and render them helpless before some hyper-liberal judge or NGO recognised by the United Nations as a key player in “international civil society”.

And then, eventually, the appeals process exhausts the government, and the migrant wins.

Looking at the surprise results in the US mid-term elections, we may be able to discern in their long, winding and uncompleted processes the faint shimmering mirage-like image of a similar rule. Before we get to that image, however, what was the surprise in the results?

As it looks, less than one week since election day, there were two surprises. The first was that despite innumerable advantages in policy and various signs and portents in the opinion polls and the heavens, the expected “red wave” of Republican victories never occurred.