Posted in2018 election

Midterm election’s meaning revealed by Ed Dover at Salem City Club

There's lots of ways to look at the results of last Tuesday's midterm election. But some ways are wrong -- like the attempt by Republicans to spin the election as a GOP win. Today Ed Dover spoke the truth about the midterms at an engrossing Salem City Club presentation, "Patterns and Meanings of the 2018 National, Oregon, and Mid-Valley Elections." Dover is a retired Professor Emeritus at the Western Oregon University Department of Political Science and Public Administration. This was Dover's 10th post-election talk to the Salem City Club. I've heard a bunch of them. Dover has an astounding grasp of…
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Posted in2018 election

Progressives, here’s some cheerful midterm election commentaries

In a Washington Post piece I read today, I saw a saying: "Republicans are naturally triumphal even when they lose and Democrats tend to get depressed even when they win." This seems generally true. But like I said last night, I'm pleased with how the midterm election turned out. Sure, it was distressing to see Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams, and Beto O'Rourke fail to win their races. But here in Oregon we enjoyed a genuine Blue Wave, and Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives is a really big deal.  FiveThirtyEight.com is projecting a gain of 37 House seats,…
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Posted in2018 election

Midterm results: I predicted I’d be sad, but actually I’m happy

A few days ago I predicted how I'd feel given certain results of today's midterm election. Below I've highlighted in green the outcomes that became reality. I added the Beto O'Rourke loss to the last two scenarios, having neglected to include it in my original post. You can see that right now -- 10:07 pm -- I thought I'd be in a mood of Sad, but things could have been worse. But actually I'm feeling Happy, though mildly disappointed. Here's my best guess why. (It has to be a guess, because it's difficult to pin down emotions.) First, I spent…
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Posted in2018 election

Ecstasy or agony? I forecast my midterms reaction.

Looking back, I realize that my despair over Trump beating Clinton in the 2016 election was caused in part by my failure to anticipate what I thought was unthinkable: Donald Trump becoming the President of the United States.  So this time around, I'm going to envision various emotional states of mind I might be in late Tuesday night -- election day -- or on Wednesday morning, if voting results of the races I most care about aren't all in before I go to bed. I need to say that while I just said races I most care about, the absence…
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Posted in2018 election Oregon politics

Here’s my 2018 midterms endorsements: every Democrat on the ballot, plus Measure 102

Since I have a blog called Salem Political Snark, it's dawned on me that I should be making endorsements for both local and statewide races, plus Oregon ballot measures.  This doesn't mean anybody will pay attention to what I say, but us bloggers don't do what we do because we believe we're influential. We just can't help ourselves, being addicted to putting what's going on inside our head into words on a computer screen, then onto the Internet where others can eavesdrop on the state of our psyche. So here's how I'm feeling two weeks before the midterm election on…
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Posted in2018 election Oregon politics

Danny Jaffer shows why Oregon, and Salem, needs to elect Democrats

Vote for Democrats in the November 2018 election. I was convinced of this before our doorbell rang a couple of hours ago, but I'm even more convinced after chatting with Danny Jaffer, who is running to represent Oregon House District 23. My wife, Laurel, has been hand writing postcards urging our neighbors out here in rural south Salem to vote for Jaffer. So I'd heard his name, and knew he was running against Republican Mike Nearman. That was it, though. Talking with Jaffer about his background and why he thinks he can win left me with a really good feeling.…
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