Senate 2022

  If ever there should be a state party that is dead in the water, it should be the Florida Republican Party which has just presided over a horrific and on-going pandemic catastrophe from a pro-COVID Republican governor and a pro-COVID Republican state legislature. DeSantis and his pet legislature invited COVID to settle in in Florida. And it has. Yesterday the state reported 5,838 more cases of COVID, bringing the state total to 858,012.

On Monday morning, the Washington Post published an increasingly rare solo-piece-- rather than team effort-- this one by Annie Linskey: Biden's Flexibility Could Mean Bloody Fights. So! Someone has noticed! "He remains vague on policy." You think?

In 2008, John McCain's first choice for a running mate was Joe Lieberman, one of the only Democrats who could make a credible argument that he was the more conservative Joe among Dems, not Biden. They were both detestable senators and Lieberman was eventually kicked out of the party by the grassroots, even with the Democratic establishment sticking with him through his trials and tribulations.

In the 2000 election, 167,398 Alaskans (58.62%) voted for George W Bush against Al Gore. Four years later 190,889 Alaskans (61.07%) voted for Bush against John Kerry. Bush was popular among Alaskan voters-- who also backed John McCain (59.42%) and Mitt Romney (54.80%). But Trump isn't well liked by most Alaskans. He barely eked out a majority against Hillary-- 51.28%, pretty sad compared to Bush.

The Texas AFL-CIO is meeting in Austin's Omni Hotel this weekend, the only union hotel in the city. On the umbrella organization's agenda is endorsing 2020 election candidates. Many locals already have done so but these endorsements are for the state organization. And there was a problem right from the start.

It came as no surprise that New York would be losing a congressional seat after the census. Speculation in Albany over a year ago was that NY-27, a large rural district in the western part of the state-- then held by crooked Trumpist Chris Collins--  would be divided up between NY-26 (Buffalo- D+11), NY-25 (Rochester- D+8) and NY-23 (Southern Tier- R+6).

Maggie Toulouse Oliver is the first 2020 Senate candidate Blue America is endorsing-- other than the reelection effort for our old pal, Jeff Merkley (D-OR). First and foremost, Maggie, New Mexico's Secretary of State, is a progressive trailblazer-- something with good positions, good ideas and the courage and ability to move positions and ideas into policy and reality. Bonus: if she wins she will be the first woman elected to the U.S.

How many Twitter followers does AOC have today. Let me look... oh... 4.37 million. That's a lot. Like let's compare that to the whole Democratic and Republican House leadership teams combined. On Team Red:

• Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader)- 288K• Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise)- 304K)• Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney)- 93.8K• Tom Emmer (@RepTomEmmer)- 12.6K total reach- 698.4K

And Team Blue?