By David Farrell
A quote for the day
“My experience teaches me this, men and nations do act wisely when they have exhausted all the other possibilities.” – Israeli diplomat and politician Abba Eban
Bruce Allen’s Reality Check: Crazy US Election continues
Joe Biden and the lure of gridlock
They were popping virtual champagne bubbles on virtual Wall Street, for reasons that are worth investigating.
The New York Times reports that “drug companies, health insurers and giant technology firms” were among the biggest beneficiaries of a rally on the S&P 500. Why? Because they’ve tended to benefit from a federal government that can’t actually do anything. And since the other main feature of Tuesday’s U.S. elections is that the Republicans seem likely to hold the Senate, Biden policies that would specifically make life difficult for drug companies, health insurers and giant technology firms are likely to get nowhere.
This is excellent news if you think the biggest problem in the United States is insufficient corporate profit, and less fantastic news if you are preoccupied with pretty much any other problem in the United States. – Paul Wells, Maclean’s
Bob Hoffman, The Ad Contrarian: Drinking the Clorox
Dear Democratic Party,
First, congratulations. Our new President will be a massive improvement on the current Bedwetter-In-Chief.
Next, I hate to be a pain in the ass, but you know me... If I were you, I'd take the presidential win more as a repudiation of Trump than an endorsement of your policies.
After the euphoria clears, I think you're going to realize that you screwed up this election bigly. It's hard to fathom why your party's showing in House, Senate and state elections was so weak. You had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and blew it.
If you can't slam dunk an election in which you are facing a corrupt, fatuous, and incompetent incumbent; when a quarter of a million citizens have died from a disease that is raging out of control; when tens of millions are unemployed; when a very popular national health program is under threat of being dismantled; when the President of the United States pays hush money to porn "stars"...something is very, very wrong.
Let's let an advertising and marketing blogweasel tell us what that is.
If you listened to the talking heads in both politics and media, you know that your party had a very big advantage on what were ostensibly "the issues." But here's the thing -- for many voters, issues are less compelling than culture.
The culture of the Democratic Party has been drifting further and further away from the cultural values of your traditional constituency -- what you call "working people." Somehow you seem to have gotten the cockamamie idea that "working people" and college students are the same thing. Culturally, working people are largely traditionalists and are mostly middle-of-the-roaders. Many may be politically liberal, but culturally conservative.
They want safe neighbourhoods; they do not want junkies crapping in their streets; they do not want drugs sold openly on street corners; they do not want to defund police departments; they do not want statues of George Washington torn down.
I know, I know... neither do you. But you need to take a good hard look at Rolling Stone's old "Perception/Reality" campaign.
Willie Brown, former Democratic Mayor of San Francisco, and an astute political observer had this to say: "The election results (were) indicative of a much redder landscape than they expected...It’s clear that the Democratic Party has lost its way...We have to stop telling voters what they should do, and instead start listening to what voters want us to do. Democrats, and that includes me, have become the elites. And we will keep disappointing ourselves in elections unless we rethink what we are doing."
Bottom line: If you allow the victory over an undignified and irresponsible President and a fawning, clownish Republican leadership to mask the fact that you are on the wrong track, you are in trouble. You came within an inch of nominating Bernie Sanders. Can you imagine the outcome?
RIP
Canadian-American television personality Alex Trebek, the host of game show Jeopardy! since its 1984 debut in syndication, has died of pancreatic cancer. He was 80. His last day in the studio was Oct. 29. There is no immediate plan to appoint a successor to the show.
Trebek became a naturalized United States citizen in 1998. He received the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host seven times for his work on Jeopardy!.
Trebek spent more than a decade at the CBC, beginning in Ottawa in 1960. He then moved on to Toronto, hosting the youth-oriented Music Hop and Pick and Choose, among other shows.
