Democrats are trying to figure out what happened last Tuesday

The New Neo Posted on by

It may seem like small potatoes, but the election defeats last Tuesday stunned them, particularly the unexpected loss in Kentucky. In non-presidential election years, Democrats always tell themselves that the vote totals don’t really reflect the makeup of the electorate, because a higher percentage of voters are Republican in the off-years and Democratic turnout soars in the presidential years. Well, that’s true, and it accounts for their successes in presidential elections and their lack thereof the rest of the time, and thus their decreasing share of state offices.

But even local and state elections matter. We see that fact reflected in the lack of depth in the Democratic presidential field this year. Democrats have to be wondering how they can increase their turnout in the off-years. Apparently, a great many of their voters just don’t care enough to vote, except for a president. What does that say about their voters? Nothing very good. How do Democrats propose to fix the problem?:

We live in a world, like it or not, where there are more conservatives than there are liberals,” said Delaware Gov. Jack Markell. “The idea that we can win elections just by turning out our base, to me, doesn’t make a lot of sense. We have to win elections by having an agenda that’s compelling not only to Democrats, but to independents and even a few Republicans.”…

That’s where the Democrats’ propaganda wing, the MSM, comes in. But so far it hasn’t worked well enough in the local sense, perhaps because people are more likely to feel the actual consequences of their government up close and personal on the local level. It’s harder to talk them out of what they’ve experienced for themselves.

So here’s another idea:

“We need to think of new ways to systematically boost turnout and expand the electorate” in off-year elections, said Hari Sevugan, a Democratic strategist who worked on President Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012. “I’m not talking about campaigns having more robust [get-out-the-vote] programs. More systematic than that. We need to look at election law and enable an expanded electorate with new ideas that work at a large scale.”

Several Democrats pointed to states where the party has advanced voting reforms, like Washington and Colorado, which conduct elections entirely by mail, or Oregon and California, which will automatically register qualified citizens to vote.

Watch for it.

Yes, I know that some of you will say all they have to do is increase the amount of cheating they do. But I’m not convinced that there’s been enough of that to matter so far, except in very close elections (Al Franken, anyone?). It is rather common, however, for Democrats to use propaganda or charges cooked up by the judicial system to influence the outcome of elections.

Terrorism and the Russian plane crash in Egypt

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been holding off writing about the Russian plane crash in Egypt until we get more definitive news about the possibility of a bomb. But with the announcement that Russia, which had been downplaying the bomb rumors, has now halted all flights to Egypt, it’s looking increasingly likely that the plane’s downing was an act of Islamic extremist terrorism.

It makes sense. I’ve written before about the fact that previous terrorist attacks in Egypt (and Tunisia) have targeted one of those countries’ biggest sources of income: tourism. This airplane incident has the potential to deal a huge blow to Egypt in that arena, which in turn would hurt its economy. What’s more, it would be a twofer, punishing the Russians as well for their anti-terrorist stance.

Of course, if it turns out that a bomb was the cause of the crash, Putin and the Russians may not be quite as turn-the-other-cheek as Europe and the US in its current manifestation have been.

Trying times

The New Neo Posted on by

It keeps hitting me that this coming election is the last one that matters.

Actually, I felt that way last time. But this time the hour has gotten even later.

But maybe it was always too late. When we play the game of “when did it all go irreparably wrong?” it’s hard to know how far to go back. Was it the 60s? Perhaps; I was around then, and I remember it as a watershed. Or was it the FDR years? Maybe. Or Wilson’s presidency? Could be.

Then again, maybe it was the passage of the 17th Amendment which established the direct election of senators, allowing more tyranny of the majority. That deserves some consideration as a turning point, I think, as does the 16th (income tax, anyone?).

We can go on. There are other possibilities. But I’ll stop there, because maybe such a trajectory is always inevitable. Maybe it’s baked into the cake of human nature to veer towards tyranny one way or another.

These desperate, last-ditch-effort feelings of mine are shared by a lot of people these days. It’s the impulse that drives a great many to Donald Trump. It doesn’t drive me in that direction, not at all; the direction it drives me in is toward several of the other candidates. At the moment, for me the leaders are Cruz and Rubio, but Carson and Fiorina are in there too.

But the feeling of urgency is not confined to this election or even to this country. The issue is nothing less than the future of Western Civilization, and the possible (probable?) revenge of Gods of the Copybook Headings; Kipling’s poem bears repeating. You’ll notice if you read it that Kipling believes that it is inevitable that people will ignore the lessons of the past, and will repeat the same mistakes again and again (“the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire”). The result? “As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”

But who wants that return to happen on their watch?

[NOTE: In researching that Kipling poem, I came across this, which mentions that Pierre F. Goodrich used to give out a copy of the poem to associates, along with the following notes:

History has built the civilization we enjoy by accumulating small pebbles of wisdom based upon experience. Every once in a while, some misguided action tears down years or centuries of progress by ignoring or misunderstanding the basic truths that underlie all that has gone before.

I’d never heard of Goodrich before. But looking him up I discovered he was a conservative businessman of the mid-20th century who established two foundations and a think tank dedicated to promoting liberty. He also published a pamphlet about education in a free society, which promoted the idea that what was required was a dialogue centered in the great ideas of civilization.]

Oh, and by the way: attacking Rubio about his finances…

The New Neo Posted on by

…seems to me like Corzine attacking Christie for being fat, and you know how that turned out.

A bad idea, in other words. These things just enhance Rubio’s and Christie’s appeal to the regular voters. You know, the ones who don’t have unlimited money, and who struggle with their weight.

You must know one or two people like that, right?

The media that was decidedly uncurious about Obama’s past…

The New Neo Posted on by

…has nevertheless become obsessed with nitpicking at everything that has ever emanated from Ben Carson’s mouth or his pen.

Case in point.

It would be another thing if everyone was subject to the same level of scrutiny, but it’s not even close. This is the equivalent of reporters parking near Palin’s house and going through her garbage, while at the same time giving Obama a pass on every lie he ever uttered, including his assertion that he sat in mentor Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years without hearing any of the hate-filled and radical remarks that were his stock in trade.

Carson isn’t my first choice as a candidate, but I like him and he was doing well (that’s why all of this is being unearthed now; because he’s doing well). I wonder how much this will hurt him. It’s the equivalent of the sort of exaggeration almost every politician engages in (perhaps I should make it every politician). He said that he had an offer of a scholarship from West Point, and it was assumed that he meant a formal offer rather than an informal one. The latter appears to have been the case, but he never corrected the record on that.

[NOTE: Remember Biden’s plagiarism? It fell down the memory hole, too; didn’t seem to hurt him one whit as a candidate for Vice President.]

ADDENDUM: See this. I suggest you read the whole thing, but here are some excerpts:

When, if ever, has Carson claimed he actually applied and was admitted to West Point?

The lede [to the Politico hit piece] says Carson has claimed to have both applied and been admitted to West Point, and Cheney [the author of the piece] reports West Point has no record of him applying or being admitted. But quotes drawn from two of Carson’s books, as well as statements from his campaign, do not support Cheney’s claim…

Has Politico somehow verified what Westmoreland promised Carson in that conversation?

Carson’s story, as quoted in Cheney’s piece, is that Westmoreland “opened doors” and offered him a “full scholarship” to West Point, and that he considered the offer but ultimately “did not seek admission.” Has Politico somehow verified whether Westmoreland, who is now deceased, made the offer?

Carson spokesman Ben Watts attacked the story, telling The Daily Caller News Foundation, “The Politico story is an outright lie. Dr. Carson as the leading ROTC student in Detroit was told by his commanders that he could get an appointment to the academy. He never said he was admitted or even applied.”

Will these facts matter? The story is out there. Most people aren’t going to analyze it to that extent. My initial impression, before I read the Daily Caller article I’m quoting in this addendum, was very similar to what it is saying: Carson was talking about Westmoreland’s verbal offer, not some official offer of a full scholarship. I haven’t gone over all of Carson’s utterances and writings on the subject, but that’s my impression from the quotes I’ve seen, including those in the Politico hit piece, which I would assume contain the most incriminating ones.

But once the accusation is out there, it has a life of its own. That’s the point; that’s why the media works so hard on going through everything an opponent has said in order to locate some sort of vulnerability it can then exploit.

ADDENDUM II: Also see the update here:

Liberal (but often reasonable) reporter Dave Wiegel notes this — three months ago, Ben Carson said he had only applied to one school.

Yet Politico claims that Carson claimed in “Gifted Hands” that he applied to West Point — which he never claimed.

ADDENDUM III: See also this and this.

And pay particular attention to this:

(1) The headline is misleading. The Carson campaign statement does not admit he fabricated anything. Here’s the statement: “Dr. Carson was the top ROTC student in the City of Detroit,” campaign manager Barry Bennett wrote in an email to POLITICO. “In that role he was invited to meet General Westmoreland. He believes it was at a banquet. He can’t remember with specificity their brief conversation but it centered around Dr. Carson’s performance as ROTC City Executive Officer. He was introduced to folks from West Point by his ROTC Supervisors,” Bennett added. “They told him they could help him get an appointment based on his grades and performance in ROTC. He considered it but in the end did not seek admission.”

(2) The lede is outright false. Politico’s Kyle D. Cheney starts with this claim: “Ben Carson’s campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from POLITICO, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.” But no where in the piece does Cheney tell the reader where Carson made this “application and acceptance” claim.

(3) It is, of course, very easy to show that Carson never applied to or was accepted to West Point, if in fact he never applied. Thus, the entire piece hinges on this missing piece of information: where and when did Carson say that he applied to and was accepted to Westpoint?

Read the whole thing. It’s not long.]

More on Europe’s determination to commit cultural suicide

The New Neo Posted on by

David Solway quotes Pope Benedict from 2007 (that’s not the current pope, it’s his predecessor):

There is a self-hatred in the West that can be considered only as something pathological. The West attempts in a praiseworthy manner to open itself completely to the comprehension of external values, but it no longer loves itself; it now only sees what is despicable and destructive in its own history, while it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure there.

Now that self-hatred is playing itself out:

Deputy Chief executive of the Human Relief Foundation (HRF), Kassim Tokan, seems puzzled by the fact that many of these claimants come from “certain countries, which are safe, [where] they can work.” Another report reveals that approximately 90 per cent of the Muslim “refugees” from “certain countries,” packing a train from Budapest to Vienna, were men between the ages of 18-45, who threatened, beat and stole from other passengers — a harbinger of things to come. The mayhem they will visit upon the West — which German Chancellor Angela Merkel ludicrously deems an “opportunity” based on “the principles of dignity, human rights and the right to political asylum” — will be nothing short of cataclysmic.

But the malignant farce goes on. Syrian migrants are now suing the Berlin state government for lagging on benefit payments. Carol Brown provides some of the details of the German catastrophe: school children have been indentured to clean up garbage and human waste in public places; trains are out of service until they can be disinfected; girls have to cover up lest the invaders be offended or lose control of themselves; and mysterious illnesses have begun to circulate. Thomas Lifson has re-posted a video of these Muslim interlopers showing them trashing the free housing they received, a handsel of what Europe may look like in the course of time. The graphic images of the Austrian town of Nickelsdorf, mounded with refuse and smeared with fecal matter, present an even clearer picture of Europe’s future.

And, as usual, the media are traitorously complicit.

Those who voice concerns about the situation Solway is describing are of course labeled racists or worse. But truth is not racist. Truth is truth.

The situation reminds me of a quote from none other than poet Robert Frost, whose Collected Works appears in the photo at the top of my blog, along with William Manchester’s Churchill biography:

A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.

Of course, liberals ordinarily have no problem taking their own side in a quarrel against conservatives. What they often do have trouble with is defending their own civilization and its great accomplishments against those who would destroy it, and against the third world. These are the rules of PC thought on the subject, in case you need a brush-up course.

[ADDENDUM: Speaking of suicide, it seems that the bishops of the Church of England are not only determined to commit suicide, but they’d like the British government to be more helpful in assisting them with that suicide. Let’s just call them the anti-Crusaders:

Church of England bishops have accused the Government of an ‘increasingly inadequate’ response to the migrant crisis and called for at least 50,000 Syrian refugees to be taken in over the next five years.

The C of E has released a letter, signed by 84 bishops, which was sent to Prime Minister David Cameron in September, urging him to make a ‘meaningful and substantial response to the scale of human suffering we see daily’.]

Canned goods

The New Neo Posted on by

I love this Greg Brown song about visiting his grandmother and eating her canned food. The patter in the middle of the song is very funny; Brown could be a stand-up comic. But the song’s poetry, too, particularly these lines:

She got magic in her, you know what I mean
She puts the sun and rain in with the green beans…

…She cans the pickles, sweet and dill
And the songs of the whip-or-will
and the morning dew and the evening moon
I really gotta go down and see her soon
Cause the canned goods that I buy at the store
Ain’t got the summer in em anymore
You bet Grandma as sure as you’re born
I’ll take some more potatoes and a thunder storm…

Here’s the song, plus the comedy bit in the middle:

When I listen to that song, I sometimes think of this poem by British poet Philip Larkin, addressed to his late father. It couldn’t be more different in tone. As warm and loving and nostalgic as Brown’s song is, that’s how depressed and time-burdened, how despairing, Larkin’s poem is. The last stanza of Larkin’s poem illustrates why the Greg Brown song conjures it up in my mind:

An April Sunday brings the snow
Making the blossom on the plum trees green,
Not white. An hour or two, and it will go.
Strange that I spend that hour moving between

Cupboard and cupboard, shifting the store
Of jam you made of fruit from these same trees:
Five loads ”“ a hundred pounds or more ”“
More than enough for all next summer’s teas.

Which now you will not sit and eat.
Behind the glass, underneath the cellophane,
remains your final summer ”“ sweet
And meaningless, and not to come again.

More thoughts on Ben Carson as candidate

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t want to make too much of a single poll, but this recent one by Quinnipiac indicates some very interesting trends about Ben Carson’s support. Carson is leading the field nationally in that poll when pitted against Clinton (as he is in many polls at the moment, and as are several other Republican candidates). But if you look at his numbers, his secret in surpassing the other Republican candidates against Hillary is in his support among two groups of voters: women and black people.

Carson doesn’t draw more black voters than Clinton does; there’s still a huge advantage for Hillary over all the Republicans with that demographic, which has voted overwhelmingly Democratic for many decades. But Carson pulls more black voters away from her than any of the other candidates do: 73% for Hillary and 19% for Carson. That’s a big shift from Obama’s 93% share of black voters in 2012.

Carson’s not the only one who does somewhat better with black voters than Romney did; in fact, all the Republican candidates asked about in the poll do at least slightly better. But Trump only gets 6% to Clinton’s 91% in this poll, which makes Trump’s showing among blacks worse than, for example, Cruz’s (81% for Hillary, 8% for Cruz). Not all the Republican candidates were mentioned in this poll, but of the ones who were, Christie was closest to Carson among black voters at 77% for Hillary and 17% for Christie.

As for women voters, Carson really does well with them in this poll, actually beating Hillary among them by a 1% margin, 45% to 44%. That’s startling, since Hillary’s reported strength is that it’s women who are her most stalwart supporters. And they usually are, so far—unless she’s running against Carson.

Why is this, I wonder? Is it Carson’s kindly, soft-spoken fatherly doctor mien that has special appeal to women? Whatever it is, with female voters Carson’s running very competitively against Hillary, who beats Christie among women by 4 points, Cruz by 9, Rubio by 4, and Trump by a whopping 20 points (Trump does somewhat better with men than the others, who also do well with men, but it doesn’t make up for his low support with women).

In trying to account for Dr. Carson’s popularity in general, his likability and low negatives are the first thing that comes to mind. His honesty is also apparent. His dramatic and inspiring personal story grabs people and makes them admire him, as well.

But there’s another factor I haven’t seen talked about very much, and it’s something I think counts for a great deal of his appeal: he’s the un-Obama. He’s the matter to Obama’s anti-matter (or vice-versa, if you prefer), the person most able to undo the Obama years, not so much in policy (although there’s that) as in persona. I’m talking about something emotional—and, like it or not, elections have a large emotional component.

If Obama has been a black man who fosters racial divisiveness, Carson is a black man who offers racial healing. Obama talked that “let’s come together” talk when he ran for president, and some people actually believed him. But he hasn’t walked that walk; au contraire. Carson says similar unifying things, but it feels as though it could actually happen (or we could at least begin to move in that direction) if he were president. It’s as though much of the country feels he offers a chance to do it over again, and to get it right this time.

Carson is certainly aware of his possible advantage with black voters, and what it could mean. I had already written the bulk of this post when I saw that Carson has released a rap ad to appeal to young, urban black voters (which is not his usual demographic of Christians, younger families, and women over 40):

The Carson campaign is convinced that if he gets 20 percent of the black vote, Hillary Clinton would not win if they are head to head in the general election…

The campaign says it will pursue this medium and particularly this demographic aggressively, especially through the March primaries.

Of course, now that Carson has come up in the polls, a Palinesque attack is being mounted on him as being an ignorant, Bible-toting fanatic, playing up his belief that the pyramids were originally built to store grain.

Highly relevant to the presidency, right? But it elicits the expected responses, such as this one in the comments section of the just-linked article, “This religious nut job scares me more than ISIS.”

Perhaps Hillary Clinton is scared, too, but for a different reason.

Stabbings seem to have come into vogue

The New Neo Posted on by

[UPDATE 12:15 PM 11/5: As is so often the case, the most detailed information and photos we’re getting early on about the attack is from the British press. It should also come as no surprise to anyone that the man wielding the knife was named Faisal Mohammad, a freshman student of 18 who was in the computer science and engineering school.

“Warnke said investigators, including the FBI, were still trying to determine the motive for Mohammad’s attack.” At this point that’s the correct thing to say, but we can certainly speculate, and it’s not rocket science to imagine a would-be jihadi motive. There will be a press conference later this afternoon. It will be interesting to learn if Mohammad was a citizen or not, as well.]

And this one at UC Merced seems to have been slowed with—of all things—a ladder.

And then by the campus police, with guns.

When I wrote that stabbings have come “into vogue,” it may have seemed like a frivolous thing to say. But I don’t mean to be frivolous at all. There are trends in violence, contagion effects that come from suggestible people on the border of doing violence themselves, who get ideas on how they might want to go about doing so from hearing the details of other incidents.

We know next to nothing about this would-be killer, except that he was a “young adult” who was a student at the university and a California resident, and that he is now dead. All the victims are excepted to recover.

Can Jeb fix it?

The New Neo Posted on by

No, he can’t.

I never saw Bush as a viable candidate. Despite his establishment support, he just doesn’t have a constituency to speak of. I started saying so a year and a half ago, and there’s no reason to change my mind.

Other recent poll results, for what they’re worth:

In general election matchups, Carson beat Clinton 50 percent to 40 percent, outdrawing the former secretary of state in the share of both men (55 percent to 35 percent) and of women (45 percent to 44 percent). Clinton also came up on the short end of hypothetical head-to-heads against Rubio (41 percent to 46 percent), Cruz (43 percent to 46 percent) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (43 percent to 46 percent), who drew less than Bush among Republican voters. Quinnipiac did not test a Bush-Clinton matchup.

Matched up against Trump, however, Clinton held a lead of 46 percent to 43 percent.

Surprise, surprise: Iran deal hasn’t softened the hardliners

The New Neo Posted on by

The NY Times observes:

Anyone who hoped that Iran’s nuclear agreement with the United States and other powers portended a new era of openness with the West has been jolted with a series of increasingly rude awakenings over the past few weeks.

On Tuesday, the eve of the 36th anniversary of the student takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran, state television announced the arrest of a Lebanese-American missing for weeks ”” after he had been invited here by the government. He has been accused of spying.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, said the “Death to America” slogan is eternal. New anti-American billboards in Tehran include a mockery of the Iwo Jima flag-raising photograph that symbolized Marine sacrifice in World War II. And an Iranian knockoff version of K.F.C., the chicken chain widely associated with the United States, was summarily closed after two days.

“It feels like a witch hunt,” said one Iranian-American businessman in Tehran, who dared not speak for attribution over fear for his safety. “It’s pretty scary.”

Yes, it is. And pretty predictable.

The Times writers begin their piece with “Anyone who hoped…”, but they don’t go on to say who these vain hopers were. Might they have included the editorial staff of the NY Times?

The day after the Iran deal—which the Times supported, with some reservations—this editorial appeared in the paper:

In theory, Iran’s decision to submit to strict limits on its nuclear activities provides a chance for cooperation on other issues. By lifting crippling international economic sanctions in return for the nuclear restraints, the deal could strengthen the hand of the moderates in Iran. But if the economic benefits don’t flow quickly enough, hopes for an end to economic hardship could be dashed, discrediting the moderates and boosting the hard-liners.

In the negotiations, Mr. Obama was right to keep the focus on restraining the nuclear program. Now that the deal is done, Mr. Obama plans to encourage Iran, which has an abysmal human rights record and is exerting influence through proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and elsewhere, to take a more constructive path, though there are no guarantees that Iran will be less disruptive in the future. On issues of human rights, terrorism and ballistic missiles, sanctions under United States law will remain in place indefinitely to keep pressure on Iran. The administration needs to be vigilant about exercising that leverage.

“In theory” covers a lot, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it almost certainly does not cover hard reality.

So it seems that even the Times appeared to realize that Iran’s softening was hardly in the bag. However, the paper’s editors were among those who expressed some hope that Obama and the deal would make it happen. And then, of course, those sanctions concerning human rights, terrorism, and ballistic missiles were still in place, “indefinitely.” Right?

Not if Khamenei has anything to say about them (as of about two weeks ago):

Iran will consider any sanctions imposed upon it during the next eight years, including those relating to human rights and terrorism concerns, to be a violation of the nuclear agreement and will as a result stop complying with the deal, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared Wednesday.

In a letter to President Hasan Rouhani, Khamenei delivered his verdict on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) reached last July between Iran, the U.S. and five other powers, and laid down his conditions for acceptance.

“During the eight-year period imposition of any sanctions at any level and under any pretexts (including the repeated and fabricated pretexts of terrorism and human rights) by any of the negotiating countries [the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany] will be considered a violation of the JCPOA,” he wrote.

This would therefore oblige the government to “stop JCPOA activities,” he added.

And a big f-you to you, says Khamenei to Obama.

An agreement is only as good as the good faith of the negotiating parties, plus the teeth behind it. This agreement clearly never had any good faith on the part of the Iranians, and few teeth on the part of the US (at least, while Obama is in office). That was apparent and obvious to anyone who looked.

Today’s Times article observes:

Many proponents of the nuclear accord, in both countries, have suggested that a gradual improvement in relations was inevitable. Some even foresaw a shift in the region, shaped by collaboration between the United States and Iran to bring peace, coupled with an eased enmity that could embolden President Hassan Rouhani to open up the country.

While Mr. Rouhani promised more freedoms when he was elected two years ago, he has taken only a few cosmetic steps.

Now, as the autumn leaves are falling in Tehran, there are no signs that bolder changes are coming. On the contrary, a backlash appears to be underway, promoted by Mr. Rouhani’s hard-line adversaries in the government who are deeply skeptical of the United States and its allies.

The backlash comes as Iran is preparing for parliamentary elections in February that constitute a litmus test of Mr. Rouhani’s policies. It seems that hard-liners, using the intelligence unit of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, have started rounding up journalists, activists and cultural figures, as a warning that the post nuclear-deal period cannot lead to further relaxation or political demands.

Again, note that the Times doesn’t see fit to tell us who those “proponents of the nuclear accord” who thought softening was “inevitable” might be. The Times itself, although definitely a strong proponent of the accord in general, was always hedging its bets in terms of what would happen: maybe yes, maybe no, and certainly not “inevitable.” As the Times notes, there was no dearth of people who did think moderation would flow from this deal, however, and many of them used that as a prime motivation for the signing of the deal in the first place.

It never made any sense. Giving into a regime such as Iran’s—and this deal has been widely regarded as having done exactly that—emboldens it rather than forcing it into concessions. Giving it more money does the same. It is folly to think otherwise. Perhaps in the long run—the very very long run—something will happen to change the human rights situation for the better in Iran. But it’s not likely to be as a result of this deal, and certainly not soon. Au contraire.

Could it be a trend?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve already commented on Bevin’s surprisingly strong win in Kentucky. That’s a victory not just for Republicans, but for conservatives. And it may not be an isolated trend limited to Kentucky, either.

Commenter “physicsguy” writes:

The earth shook yesterday! In my little corner of the world in eastern Connecticut, the GOP made some huge gains. In Norwich the GOP swept the entire city council. In my own town we have a GOP 1st Selectman and new GOP selectmen for the first time in 25 years, and the BoEd now has 4 new GOP members. Similar results throughout eastern CT (which is fairly rural, BTW). Never would I have ever thought such could happen. Does local translate to national??

That’s the billion-dollar question. I’d say that add enough locals together and it does translate to a possible national trend. At least, it’s a snapshot of where we’re at as of now.

There are other indications from yesterday’s elections, small tremors that might indicate something bigger coming. Wishful thinking, perhaps? After all, this is an off-year election, and those tend to run more to the right than in presidential years.

But take a look at these results:

(1) A Houston equal rights measure passed by the City Council but now subjected to a popular vote, and widely perceived as allowing men alleging to be transsexuals to use women’s bathrooms, is soundly defeated (also see this for a much more detailed explanation of what went on there). I wonder if, as with other such popular defeats of the LGTB agenda, the vote results will now be declared unconstitutional by the courts.

(2) The Virginia Senate failed to flip over to the Democrats, holding its slim Republican majority. This was not as local a race as it sounds, either. Virginia has a Democratic governor who was intent on getting a Democratic Senate to work with, and outsiders contributed money to accomplish that result. The effort failed:

…[T]he biggest prize the elections offered was momentum ”” the opportunity for the winning party to claim that voters in this key presidential swing state were leaning its way one year ahead of the White House contest.

McAuliffe, once a record-smashing fundraiser for his close friends Bill and Hillary Clinton, had hoped a win would help sway purple Virginia in 2016.

National donors and outside groups on the left and right seized on the state Senate races.

(3) A San Francisco sheriff who is a strong defender of its sanctuary city status was not re-elected.

(4) Ohio rejected legalization of recreational pot.

Of these four results, I think Virginia’s is potentially the most important.

[ADDENDUM: More here.]