Cameron’s 2018 Mid-Term Election Rehab

I started the 2018 Mid-Term Election day early. I got a haircut so I’d look good on my series of hourly videos I posted to Youtube and Instagram. Dems are waking up sad this morning as the Senate did not go their way at all and some big national stories went down in flames. Beto O’Rouke was a favorite in Texas and Cruz managed to pull off a win anyway. The reality is that Texas is a deep red state and any democratic challenge was a long-shot. Some people already want him to run for President and while I don’t really think that’s a great move at this time, I don’t think his story is over. The story is similar in Florida where Gillum conceded last night and Nelson looks to be unseated. Florida is always close but the outcomes seem obvious at this point.

Last night gave us results in these mid-term congressional and governors races early. Some folks thought it would be a late night and it wasn’t really. We had great indications of what the story of this election would be around 7:30 PST. I was already putting my equipment away by 8 p.m. Nancy Pelosi got on TV around midnight eastern to talk about her plan for leading the house and working on bipartisanship. I was ready to tuck into my command center well in the small hours. I’m writing my election rehab at 9 p.m.

This election was won despite of the Democrats not because of them. This election has proved that Americans are not yet tired of Trump. I think it also proves their ability to separate local candidates from the national party. Trump tried to make this about him and it looks like he was successful. This is what America wants. The left will have to keep fighting. This groundswell of support is going to be potent energy in 2020 when the map favors democrats heavily and frustration with Trump will have had 2 more years to build up.

Narratives

The narratives in the 2018 campaign were quite odd. The democrats struggled early on to get on message that wasn’t centered around Trump. The media seemed to focus on Trump more than the actual races or policies at stake. I don’t necessarily think that the democrat argument that their candidates were more female and more diverse than ever before was a selling point, especially given the Gillum and Abrams losses. It’s nice for democracy but I don’t think it helped turn out votes. Over the next two years, the media needs to leave the Trump story behind. Trump made the election about him, but that is enabled by the media who continues to show up to his rallies and continue to have him on television almost all the time. Sevreal times, networks have simply showed up to a Trump rally and turned on the camera without much else. This isn’t helping America and it isn’t helping democrats. This election had it all: national stories, a hopeful party desperate to grab some sort of power to stop the Trump train. It almost worked. It would have been better of democrats had swept into government but that’s not quite how this country works. 

Obviously, the Kavanaugh and Caravan narratives worked. It scared people and made people more likely to vote red than they might have been a month ago. Trump also re-proved to the GOP that those that stray from Trump won’t survive re-election. The GOP is going to be more Trump than ever before. The moderate voices are out and extremism is in. How Nancy Pelosi and the democrats face up to that threat remains to be the next great story. 

The Blue Wave and Nancy Pelosi

When Nancy Pelosi showed up to Colbert and decided to declare victory, I wanted to throw a remote at the TV. I have a nice LG, so I refrained, but this is the type of thing that just ruins democratic messaging. As SLATE stated, until leadership changes, Democrat messaging isn’t going to change either. Pelosi faces a difficult path to being Speaker. Democrats are in the mood for change and while she might have delivered the House this year, it’s long past time for a change. If there is one thing Democrats can take from Gillum and Abrams is their exquisite messaging. I will say that democrats not in the national spotlight did quite well. The Democrats picked up governorships and state legislature races. This will be very important as we approach 2020 with the upcoming census and redistricting. Ballot measures legalizing marijuana and changing election systems were on the ballot in Michigan and elsewhere. Out here in Washington, our ballot measure for more gun control seems on track to win and the carbon tax appears to be losing as this hour. 

The Economy Isn’t Enough

As witnessed by GOP messaging this 2018 election season, you can tell that the GOP did not want to focus on the otherwise good economy. Wages are rising, the uemployment rate is low and things have finally improved after a deade of stagnation. However, Trump wasn’t talking about this nearly as much as the migrant caravan and all the lies and narratives around that. The simple fact is that the GOP proves that Trump rhetoric is poison in an insidious way. the fact that life is good under Trump doesnt stop the fact that we all have to life in the reality show that is Donald Trump. It’s the scandals, the investigations, and the constant weight of Trump. His poor decisions have begun to poison the well. It will take time but as Winston Churchill once said, “Americans will the right thing, once all other alternatives have been exhuasted.”

According to exit polls, healthcare has over taken the economy as the dominant issue in this election. However, I don’t quite see how healthcare is going to improve under a split Congress. If it’s a dominant issue, than not enough Americans voted for people that could actually solve that problem, especially in the Senate. I imagine the Democrats will try to do something with healthcare but whether the Senate will even take up the matter is something we have to think about in a time of dysfunctional government.

Final Thoughts

I spent the final moments of my 2018 election coverage talking with a friend. She had predicted that Americans would come out in droves and repudiate the GOP and everything it stood for under Trump. I said the results would be modest and I was right and she was wrong. I wish I had been wrong. It would have been a very different conversation if the map had turned blue in unexpected ways. The polling going into the election showed close races and many possibilities but no runaway successes. You went into the election trying to see if Americans were really ok with the direction of the country and what Trump is doing. As it turns out, Americans are unhappy with things are going but not so unhappy that they frantically voted for democrats in all races. The big pickups in the House are good. It shows that people are ready for a more progressive vision. However, Democrats shouldn’t get too cozy. If they don’t produce some results and behave better than they did during the Kavanaugh affair, these gains could be easily lost in 2 years. This was a nice win for democrats, but there is still much to be done.