Getting a full nights sleep is increasingly difficult for us democrats, and for good reasons. Just ran across an interview of one of the forgotten heroes of the GLBT(add letters to taste…) movement here in Minnesota, Margaret O’Hartigan. Despite being unable to afford law school Margaret successfully sued the state of Minnesota to pay for her gender affirming health care way back in the 70s, lobbied for trans inclusive civil rights laws back when the pure white G&L ignored the B and was happy to kick the T under the bus if it got them their full measure of white privilege back. After a stint as a legislative staffer Margaret moved to Washington and now Oregon and brought her activism with her and she’s largely responsible for the passing of trans inclusive laws out there as well as leading an inner city neighborhood organization. Margaret’s nearing 70 and sharp as ever, and she’s damn worried- The extremists who have taken over the former Republican Party are already trampling the rights of trans citizens and even children everywhere they can. Fortunately they can’t in Minnesota… Yet. Given that almost every Republican candidate who is replacing a retiring Republican incumbent is more radicalized and wants to take America back a century if not three, we can expect they’ll act quickly next year to make abortion a capital crime and send gays back to the closet if they can’t get to Canada.
Look at any decent polling site and the trend is clear, due to gerrymandering (some of it self inflicted by democrats clustering in big cities) republicans have at least a 2% advantage in controlling the U.S. House, and in the generic ballot we’re 2% down and dropping. A mere 2% shift of votes to the republicans averages out to the loss of 20 Democratic U.S. House seats, and we’ve got a mere 10 seat majority, and in the Senate we only have a majority because Vice President Kamala Harris can cast tie breaking votes in our favor. Here in Minnesota our democratic Governor Walz has a shrinking to almost nonexistent lead in the polls and re-election of the rest of our statewide slate that trailed Walz in the last election is even less likely. The republicans already control the Minnesota Senate thanks largely to environmental extremists driving a couple sitting democratic senators from mining areas out of the party, and even a 2% shift of votes in the republican’s direction will probably wipe out twice our democratic 10 seat majority in the House. It gets worse… Here in western Minnesota’s R+19 7th Congressional District the Republican incumbent has a bare +8% net approval from republicans but whole hog herds will take flight before DCCC will chip in a dollar of the millions it would take to win this seat. Down ballot we’ve got a whole two competitive legislative seats, and they’re seats we’re defending as democratic incumbents are retiring. We’ve got a bunch more districts that democrats won as recently as 2018, but many of our candidates are scrambling to get their campaigns going and raise the $3000(House) or $6000(Senate) to qualify for state campaign funding, never mind the six figure campaign war chest needed to be competitive.
The iconic legend of the “runaway train” is real- Heavy trains are so efficient due to their low air and rolling resistance that they’ll pick up speed on a barely visible down hill, and if not slowed in time will reach speeds far beyond what the brakes are capable of stopping them from. That’s why you’ll see trains slow before a long downhill, to get the speed down to where electric resistance braking will control the train’s speed and the brakes can be kept fresh in case an emergency stop is needed. Thanks to a pandemic that refuses to leave and inflation we didn’t cause but the party in power gets blamed for, this is a wave election going the wrong way and the political equivalent of a long steep downhill track with tight curves and a junction at the bottom.
Now if our Democratic leaders up in the locomotive were “on the ball” our DC Democrats would have started fighting the inflation that’s impoverishing us months ago instead of trying to ignore it. Instead of ‘splaining, they’d expose the Republicans for the haters and traitors they are. Here in Minnesota we’d put everything behind our most winnable race, re-electing Governor Walz so he can veto Republican attempts to criminalize reproductive and trans health care. Instead I’m seeing multiple daily tweets of campaign events from the Republican candidate increasingly known as “Dr. Death” with barely a peep from the MIA Walz campaign. Maybe because while the Minnesota Republican Party is broke but has thousands of fired up MAGA volunteers, the Democrats have millions in the bank but can’t seem to grasp that their target young athletic campaign workers can find better than the $15 an hour with 15 hours of mandatory overtime temp campaign jobs they’re offering. And back here in the “caboose” of Lyon County in rural western Minnesota, they’ve cut our parade presence to the “prettiest” float which has $500 worth of custom graphics… I ain’t rich enough for that competition. While we democrats should be campaigning hard there’s little for us to do, and I suspect I should prepare for the inevitable and take an extended Canadian vacation, maybe shop for an affordable prairie Province small town home too?
Democrats: If you decide to get a campaign together call me, I’ll be on the road…
Sassy Democrat 