The Georgia Results
Below, I give you 15 things you can do today.
Here’s a 16th:
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The Georgia Senate runoff election results will decide everything and/but we might not know the Georgia Senate runoff election results for days or weeks if the races are close.
The bipartisan conventional wisdom is that Republicans need overall same-day Election Day turnout to approach one million votes to have a big enough pool of ballots to offset the lead Democrats banked with early and by-mail voting.
So while we wait for the results – and to see if there are results clear enough to actually know who will control the Senate at the start of 2021, here are 15 things you can do to occupy your buzzing brain and heightened curiosity:
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1. As always, your most reliable indication of turnout during the day is what your dentist’s cousin who lives in an Atlanta suburb says about how long the line was to vote as compared to what it has been in the past.
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2. Do not waste your time asking people for exit poll data before cocktail hour. Even then, remember history: Exit polls are not votes, truth, determinative, or predictive.
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3. Be aware of these 80,000-feet tea leaves:
* Politico: “Biden’s advisers are privately skeptical about Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock’s chances, Democrats say.”
* Several high-level Republican strategists, associated with Mitch McConnell, are cautiously and quietly optimistic their candidates will win.
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4. If you are a Democrat looking for hope or a reporter looking to prewrite a Perdue/Loeffler political obit that puts blaming Donald Trump in your lead, look no further than this Wall Street Journal data-ish point:
Some Georgia Republican voters were disturbed by news of the Saturday conversation. Emory Morsberger, a former Republican state representative who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016, said he had planned to vote for Mr. Perdue and against Ms. Loeffler in the contests. He changed his mind after learning of the president’s call and voted against both Republicans. He dropped his absentee ballot off Monday.
“We need to get rid of the whole Trump mentality,” Mr. Morsberger said. “Trump and Trump puppets need to go. It’s embarrassing for our country. We need to clear out support for this kind of goofiness.”
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5. Remind yourself of some basic stuff:
The polls are set to close at 7 p.m. EST on Election Day, and that’s when ballot counting can begin. Absentee ballots must be received by the close of polls to be counted. Military and overseas ballots postmarked by Tuesday and received by Friday will be counted, and absentee voters also have until Friday to fix any problems so their votes can be counted.
No ballots, including absentee ballots received in advance of Election Day, can be counted until the polls close. But a state election board rule requires county election officials to begin processing absentee ballots — verifying signatures on the outer envelope, opening the envelopes and scanning the ballots — before Election Day. That should speed things up on election night. Still, some absentee ballots received by mail or in drop boxes up until 7 p.m. on Election Day will still need to be processed….
Under Georgia law, if the margin separating the candidates is within 0.5%, the losing candidate has the right to ask for a recount. (Associated Press)
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6. Read this Washington Post Georgia primer on the Peach State’s geopolitical breakdown.
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7. Ask yourself how much media attention a tweet like this from a young, very-much-in-the-news Democratic Senator who was talked about as a presidential candidate would get:
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8. On the occasion of the celebration of the (extant) life of Tanya Roberts, answer one of the great TV trivia questions of all time:
Which is higher: The number of seasons Farah Fawcett was on “Charlies Angels” or the number of seasons Chevy Chase was on “Saturday Night Live.”
(Answer is below.)
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9. Read this George Terwilliger bio to get ready for what could be an epic legal struggle.
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10. If you want to know what the Pelosi-Biden mindset/posture is likely to be in the face of post-1/20 progressive calls to relitigate the Trump years, note this:
The Raffensperger call, however, has renewed calls from some Democrats to impeach Trump, who has 16 days left in office. But House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) made clear at his weekly presser that that’s not an avenue the House will pursue.
“We’re not looking backward, we’re looking forward,” he said. (Politico)
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11. Watch some of my focus group with Trump and Biden voters, getting their sense of potential 2024 Republican presidential candidates, with great enthusiasm for and interest in Nikki Haley and Kristi Noem; a lack of enthusiasm for and interest in Mike Pence and Marco Rubio; and another round of favorable views of Ron DeSantis.
(If you would like to participate in a future focus group I will moderate, send an email to focusgroup@walkingduck.com and say you want in….)
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12. Muse about how amazing it is that we still don’t really know what kinds of presentations and claims Ted Cruz and Co. plan to make on Wednesday — and then do the best you can to prep yourself by reading this multi-multi-multi-part Twitter thread in its entirety:
13. Re-read what the president said about the vice president in Georgia Monday night, along with the president saying what a great guy the vice president is:
“I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you…Of course, if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him as much.”
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Fawcett was on “Charlies Angels” for one (1) season, versus Chevy Chase being on “Saturday Night Live” for two (2).
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14. If you want to read a very smart Purple take on the excesses, blind spots, and unhelpfulness of Red and Blue, please consume yet another long Twitter thread here:
Then read this message I got from sage WWoN reader Noam Dworman, who pointed me to the above thread:
I keep thinking that partisanship is driving almost everyone's opinion here, and almost no one is looking at this from a what's best for the country POV. Debunking this election fraud thing - not in an "in-your-face, drop-the-mic" way - but in a Warren Commission way, or even a Penn and Teller "Bull**t" way, is vitally important right now.
THE LEFT NEEDS TO ACCEPT THE FACT THAT TOOOOOO MANY OF THE THINGS THEY TOLD US COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE TRUE, TURNED OUT TRUE. This is a Boy Who Cried Wolf inverse situation. There was a wolf every time they told us there wasn't - right up to calling him a "liar" for saying there would be a vaccine. And now they expect normal people, who don't follow politics 24/7, and who don't have the training or sophistication to tease out information, to simply believe them that everything is on the up and up. You know... just like the FISA investigation.
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15. Read this wrenching essay by parents Jamie Raskin and Sarah Bloom Raskin, about the passing of their son Tommy.
And remember that mental health is a struggle for so many and that there are more important things in life than Georgia Senate runoffs.
