Election 2014 - Final Thoughts

My being undecided, "independent", non-partisan is something of a glib inside joke in certain political circles, but as I stood in the voting kiosk yesterday, I paused, truly not sure what I was going to do.

Unlike ridiculous Alison Grimes, I will not keep what I did a secret. I split my ticket. I voted for several Republicans and a few Democrats. I will leave the kimono closed just enough to let you guess which ones.

My temporary electoral existential crisis was caused by the revulsion of being in the same room, celebrating victory with this guy, but also the realization the Democrats had never really made the case for my vote.

With last night's lashing, my advice to Democrats is this: just once, try running on your record instead of away from it. The Republicans sure aren't afraid to. No matter how loony their record is, no matter how out of touch with reality it is, they understand the only way to convince people to trust them is to say, "here it is and that's the way it's gonna be!" Last night shows, it doesn't matter how freak show it gets, they still win.

You may still not get my vote ( or even many others ), but you certainly can't lose any more votes. At this point, I don't think that's conceivable. Even for Democrats.

Thus endeth the lessons. For now.

Final Thoughts For The Last 24 Hours

Not so random thoughts for your last day of election madness.

• My standard response to everyone who has asked me over the past three weeks, "It's gonna be close"
• Republicans are surging. As national pundit Taegen Goddard put it over the weekend, "if you are unskewing, you're losing". Democrats are mining for nuggets of optimism in a series of very bad polls.
• However, the wise remember that the polls in the Republican primary were off. In some cases by a lot. There is a fair amount of evidence significant problems exist in the fundamentals of polling Georgia.
• Bottom line - Democrats are not "unskewing" ala the Republicans in 2012. They aren't delusional. Maybe just a little naively optimistic.
• You will hear a lot about turnout. Why this matters is a couple of ticks of percentage on the African American turnout or on Michelle Nunn winning women will be the difference in another typical Democratic loss or a runoff
• Which leads to get out the vote efforts. For Democrats to win they will have to get voters who don't normally vote in a midterm to the polls in unprecedented numbers
• Expecting this to happen may be more hopeful optimism, but the Democrats are more organized than any election year since the 90s.
• Reminder. The big counties always report late. Expect Carter and Nunn to be significantly behind in the early evening and pull closer as the night goes on
• If Perdue and Deal are only ahead by about 2 points with Fulton and DeKalb still out, there may not be enough face powder to hide the flop sweat

Final thought. Once the Republicans win, and they will, either tomorrow or in January, you will hear the phrase "the people have spoken" quite a bit. And the people will have spoken but it will be in a whisper, not a roar.

Nate Silver has an excellent round up of why this election is a mixed bag. It is not the "wave" the so-called "liberal" media is now trying to paint.

The House is a non-issue. 89% of the seats are considered a lock. As expected, Republicans will only pad their majority.

The Republicans will take the Senate. That has been the story all along and that is the way it will finish. The only reason the narrative veered is because Democrats made it much closer than expected in places they shouldn't have. Like Arkansas. Like Louisiana. Like Georgia.

If you wish to seek the dark place where Republicans worry, it is in the corner where the media barely ventures - the Governors. In a year where the sitting Democratic President has approvals hovering around 40%, some Republican Governors are fighting for their lives.

If this were a Republican wave year, Nathan Deal in Georgia and Rick Scott would barely have to open their mouths to win re-election. In a normal year, a state that voted +7 for Romney and has elected Republican super-majorities in both of its state houses should easily return a Republican Governor to a second term. Instead, Georgia may end up in a runoff.

As Patterson Hood once wrote, "there's a lot of bad wood underneath the veneer".

Some are wise enough to heed the warnings. They are the ones flinching from Ted Cruz acting like he already controls the Senate. They are the ones who quietly talk about 2014 being "a near death experience".

After tomorrow night, the question will be will those quiet voices have any chance to steer the Republican ship away from the obvious rocks or will the loud and self-righteous continue to drown out all who do not bathe in the waters of purity.

Republicans Will Lose By Winning

Republicans are going to win and it is the worst thing that can happen to them.

Although polls show Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter continue to keep David Perdue and Nathan Deal within their grasp, as happens with most elections in Georgia, after a brief high water mark for Democrats, the trends are shifting towards the Republicans. The fundamentals are still too strong. Every statewide office is held by a Republican. The state voted for Romney by a considerable margin (although considerably less than other Republican strongholds). And in the case of Deal, the force of incumbency is the strongest variable in the physics of politics.

Although the Republican’s losing an incumbent Governor would sting, it will be the inevitable victory of David Perdue which will ultimately cause the Republican Party both in this state and nationally to continue to coast on the belief that their ideas, and not structural factors, are the reason they just keep on winning.

I get called a liberal quite a bit and there’s a simple reason. I live in Georgia.

I believe most gun laws are feel-good salves which have little effect in the real world. If I were ever elected to an office, despite that time seven years ago when I called them thugs , I would probably get an A on the NRA's scorecard. But because I acknowledge the word “regulate” appears in the Second Amendment and because I admit that a gun law being stupid doesn’t make it unconstitutional, I get called a liberal. You see in Georgia and states where words like “true” and “principled” are used not just as descriptors but as badges against heresy, to acknowledge any nuanced interpretation of our “fundamental rights” is to acknowledge you are nothing more than a dirty gun grabber.

I think government should be as small as possible and we should tax ourselves as little as possible. But because I add the word “possible” to those declarations, I’m called a liberal. A “true” (there it is again) conservative would simply say, “government should be small” and “we should tax ourselves little”. If you even hint that taxes are not painfully high or that after 30 years of the experiment, supply side economics may not work, you are a liberal. That all data shows effective tax rates are at historic lows and that in Kansas, the governor is empirically proving that tax cuts do not pay for themselves, matters not one whit. Unless you bow at the altar of taxes should always be reduced, you are not only a liberal. You’re a socialist.

To see the effects of this twisted view of reality, look no further than Ted Cruz. No doubt turning the ground for a Presidential run, he recently said Republicans would lose again if they nominate another candidate in the mold of John McCain or Mitt Romney. And in the funhouse in which Cruz lives, these candidates did not lose because they are reasonable men forced to wear the clown outfit of “true conservatism” in front of an electorate who easily saw the fakeness of it all. No, in Cruz’s distorted world, they lost because they didn’t run hard enough to the right. Only true believers find redemption and salvation and the glory of winning.

If you live in deep red Texas or in Georgia, the reasoning is seductive. It works for us here, why would it not work everywhere? But much like believing I’m a liberal, it ignores all to the contrary. The rest of the country is not Texas or Georgia and the evidence shows it.

The Republicans have managed a majority in a Presidential election once since 1988. In Senatorial elections, statewide races and therefore immune to the weird demographics of gerrymandering, instead of a wave in 2014, the Republican’s likely outcome is a slight swell that manages to get past rocks named Nunn in Georgia and Orman in Kansas. And the Governors. Republican Governors were once the pride of the party and the Republican Governor’s Association one of its most powerful brokers. Now, Republican Governors, even those in friendly places like Georgia, are fighting for their lives.

Of course Republicans dominate the House of Representatives for reasons that go well beyond party purity. No finer example of this is the inevitable election of Jody Hice in Georgia’s 10^th District. A district that includes a portion of liberal Athens is going to send someone to Capitol Hill who believes the First Amendment does not apply to certain religions, women should submit to men and everything started going to hell in a hand basket when we took Bibles out of school.

And here is where we get to the nut of the thing. You do not hear those “liberty” criers criticizing Hice’s malleable view of the 1^st Amendment. Certainly not in the manner they attack other Republicans who only say we should discuss the meaning of the 2^nd Amendment. And it is because Republicans in deep red states, like Georgia, have only seen success in continuing to narrow the path. They don’t see Jody Hice and his ilk as outliers. They see them as the mainstream.

And when Deal and Perdue are elected and the Reverend Jody goes to Washington, Republicans will recline again in the comfort that people like me are liberals, fundamentals like demographics will never change and as long as you are “true” and “principled”, the righteous will always emerge from battle covered in glory.

Two years from now when traditional Republicans tire of being called liberals, when the demographics needle ticks a few more points out of their favor, when they will defend twice as many seats as Democrats in the Senate and face another electoral thrashing in a Presidential race, maybe, just maybe, the few Republicans left will stand up and say, you know what boys and girls, this ain’t really working.

Until that moment comes, the path will continue to narrow and more will fall by the wayside.

Politics, Reality and Florida

"Time is flat circle" ~Rust Cohle

Politics is three legged stool of the political, the governing and the reality. Those who try to balance on only the first, inevitably crash. This morning, Florida (it's always Florida) presents two sets of evidence to test this particular theory.

The Florida 13th

Last night Republican David Jolly beat Democrat Alex Sink in a special election in the 13th Congressional District. Republicans are crowing it is a bell weather for 2014 and yet another death knell for Obamacare. Democrats are downplaying the loss as another typical result of a low turnout election in a Republican-leaning district.

We are so desperate to see signs and portents. Since Stonehenge was thrown up, finding meaning in the vastness is a closed circuit buried down in our limbic battery.

In all this chicken bone reading, few except Dave Weigel note the reality that Jolly didn't exactly run against Obamacare but more against Medicare cuts (less popular in Florida than an early freeze) and Alex Sink is and has always been a terrible campaigner.

Not that the Democrats can blithely wave off another Sink sinking. Like 2010, the math is against them in 2014 and they cannot ignore any soft underbelly.

The Politics - Republicans will use the 13th as grease for the momentum rail. Democrats will try to downplay it while privately fretting about a possible wave election. Expect to see more attention to Georgia's Michelle Nunn as she becomes a firewall for Democratic Senate Control. And that's trouble, because expecting a relative newcomer to turn a deep red state into a blue victory reeks of desperation.

The Governing - The 13th doesn't change any equations. The Republicans were going to keep the house anyway.

The Reality - It's 8 months until the election. Anything can happen. And in the end, places like Alaska will matter more than Pinellas County.

As another Alex Sink chapter closes, one of her previous rivals is attempting to start a new one.

Charlie Crist is back

The former Florida governor was a frequent writing topic of mine from 2008 to 2010. His story was a speedball for a political junkie.

Charlie went from rock star politician with a 70% approval rating and national aspirations to the political wilderness in under three years. Part of my fascination with him was his independent streak but as he unwisely stepped out of the safe cocoon of the Governor's mansion and straight into the buzz saw of the Tea Party machine, I also saw him as a sign of things to come. He became one of the first of a long line of establishment Republican casualties who ignored the fervor of the purity caucus and were tossed onto the pile of kindling

But unlike Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, Charlie is no longer fighting the raging Republican inquisition from the inside. Charlie switched sides.

Crist is running for his old job - as a Democrat. Some see this as opportunism. After he was trounced by Marco Rubio in the 2010 Republican Primary, Charlie switched to independent and then lost again. A couple of years later, he celebrated President Obama's re-election and completed the journey to the Donkey side of the aisle.

His response to criticism of this change echoes another former southern governor. Charlie says he didn't leave the Republican Party, it left him.

The Atlantic's Molly Ball has a detailed piece on Crist's nascent campaign and much like Charlie himself, it is not the expected. Of course, he has big money backers but he's eschewing a traditional campaign structure and seems to go where ever the flow of politics takes him.

I learned a few years ago that even the nicest guys don't win if their entire plan is to bounce around from place to place shaking hands, kissing babies and expecting people to act like they have good sense. Charlie Crist's recent electoral experience showed him the price of counting on voters acting rationally, which makes his weird new venture seem more like a soothing of the spotlight jones than a serious effort to retake the helm of the fourth largest state.

The Politics - Current Governor Rick Scott is deeply unpopular. Especially with teachers. And one political maxim every governor lives by is don't piss off the teachers. However, much like Georgia to the north, the Republican machine (ironically partially built by Crist) has a stranglehold on politics. Scott has the money and the infrastructure. His only real weakness is his own stupidity.

The Governing - Florida is in better shape than it was four years ago and how much credit goes to Governor Scott largely depends on your affiliation. However, despite being one of the Tea Party torch bearers, he accepted Medicaid expansion. That shores up what could have been a dangerous political flank.

The Reality - Unless your name is Lawton Chiles and you walk from Pensacola to Key West, maverick campaigns don't work in Florida. It's just too big with too many major television markets. Scott's war chest is overwhelming and unless Charlie stops kissing babies and starts setting up a real campaign, he's doomed.

What We Got Right And What We Got Wrong

Don't like the weather in Atlanta? Wait five minutes. In a week where there were few laughs, as we hit 65 this weekend and roll around in shorts, we would do well to remember that old joke.

But humor aside, we all learned some harsh lessons this past week. And by everyone, I mean everyone. Everyone made mistakes - from employers who gambled they could get a full days work out of their employees to the Governor, who for reasons he has yet to explain, did not fully mobilize following that early morning warning from the National Weather Service to the national media who do not understand "Atlanta" is more than a dot on the map.

Hopefully, once the sensationalism dies down, we will have an honest conversation about everything that went wrong.

Let me be clear about a few things first.

• The National Weather Service absolutely got the forecast right. I have nothing but admiration for this sometimes beleaguered agency. I would trust them with my life.
• Once the warning was made at 3:55am Tuesday morning, state and local leaders made a series of calamitous decisions. One more important than all of the others
• The national media continues to conflate how much warning we received and what "Atlanta" is and this is the reason we continue to wallow in the blame swamp.

Let's start with the forecast issue.

Nathan Deal made an unfortunate word choice in his first storm press conference, calling the storm "unexpected". Of course he was wrong. The National Weather Service and other weather outlets had warned Georgia of an impending event since the previous Saturday. But he wasn't completely wrong. Prior to 3:00pm on Monday, no weather service indicated north of I-20 would be hit with any more than a dusting and any icing problems would happen Tuesday night (and this did happen just as predicted but by then it was too late).

That the nexus of the disaster hit north of I-20 is a critical fact which plays into any analysis and has been mostly ignored.

Reviewing the weather discussion from the NWS, all indications prior to Monday evening show the focus of the storm being south of I-20. It was Monday evening before Fulton County was upgraded from a Winter Watch to an Advisory*. The last thing most people saw before they went to bed was 1-2 inches of accumulation in Fulton County but the worst of the storm still far to the south.

It should be noted, the one service that made explicit warnings on Monday afternoon was Accuweather. Vice President Mike Smith is rightly furious that no one listened. But the government doesn't listen to a private company, they rely on the National Weather Service.

In addition to the standard warnings, government leaders received two briefings from the NWS and they are telling. The Monday 3:00pm briefing included the statement "significant travel problems across much of central and some of north Georgia including parts of the Atlanta Metro area". The next briefing was at 9:00am the following morning and it was far more explicit, but as we now know, the die was already cast.

At 3:55am, everything changed. The NWS issued a Winter Warning and its details were rather explicit. Instead of snow starting midday to midafternoon, it would start at 9:00 am and the conditions would deteriorate as we went into the afternoon.

This is a crucial point for two reasons: National media (and some local partisans) keep saying we had days of warnings this would happen (not true for the northern suburbs) but starting at 3:55am, local officials had definitive warning and how they acted after this was critical.

Once a warning was in hand, several critical decisions were not made, and few of them involve the man taking the brunt of the blame - Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.

Circumstantial evidence indicates the critical decision was made by Fulton County Schools Superintendent Robert Avossa. Despite the explicit warning earlier that morning and the more dire warning by Accuweather 12 hours earlier, he chose to send kids to school.

This may have been the domino that started the chain. Instead of a significant portion of the population staying home to care for young people, they went to work. And when the crisis was rapidly approaching its peak, those children were desperately trying to get home. And parents were desperately trying to get to them. Instead of no trips because everyone was safe in their warm houses, parents had to attempt what amounted to an extended drive with two destinations instead of just one - or none.

At the state level, no one seems sure what happened at GEMA (Georgia's Emergency Management Agency). Based on local reports, its website was not updated with warnings until later in the day. And WSB-TVs Lori Geary reported the command center was quiet on Tuesday morning. Lack of warning may have given false confidence to the business community. Would you risk an entire day's revenue if the state agency in charge of emergencies did not appear concerned?

Later that evening GEMA head Charley English admitted the center was not fully activated until 4:00pm. When asked why, he gave the mind-boggling response that conditions were not serious at that point. It is apparent that, if not ignored, the NWS warning earlier that morning was not given the attention it needed.

As the crisis built, where were the most visible leaders of the region and the state? Governor Deal and Kasim Reed were at an award luncheon at noon - around the same time, over a million people decided to escape the city.

This shows an appalling lack of awareness and both may pay a price politically. Mayor Reed was quick to defend that he had trucks working at 9:00am that morning and he is no doubt right. But he's also a smart enough politician to understand you don't graciously accept meaningless awards at a rubber chicken lunch when the city is teetering on chaos.

But of all the things that went wrong, here's where Mayor Reed is right. The city streets were relatively clean. Unlike 2011 when the inner city was paralyzed for four days, Atlanta itself had streets working throughout the crisis and in under 24 hours was still a functioning city.

Ironically, that may be the reason things went so horribly wrong. People were able to get out of the city grid and onto the freeways and here is where hope was lost.

As the news became national, video proliferated of "Atlanta". I-75 into Cobb and the northern arc of the perimeter were shown on a continuous loop. The problem is neither is actually in the city of Atlanta.

To those of the outside world, "Atlanta" is a dot on a map. To those of us who live here it can mean as far south as Stockbridge and as far north as Jasper. As Atlanta Magazine's Rebecca Burn's noted, neither is actually the City of Atlanta.

And because the national media never provided this important context, the weather forecasters can rightly say they predicted the situation while never noting they didn't predict it for the northern suburbs until very late in the game. And the national media can continue to beat up on Kasim Reed when he had exactly zero to do with state highways traversing north Fulton and Cobb.

It continues today. We are all Atlanta. Until the crisis passes and for the remainder of the year, we back into our respective corners and get very little accomplished in solving our traffic problems.

And here is the ultimate lesson from that horrid 24 hours - we didn't have a weather problem. We had a traffic problem. As I indicated in the Peach Pundit Daily ( you can subscribe here ), we have no effective means of rapidly evacuating Atlanta. Emotional terror of not being able to reach your stranded child is inconceivable - actual terror with the possibility of substantial loss of life is exponentially worse.

Once the blame storm has passed, we have some hard questions to ask and they should center around the short term, why do we not have an effective evacuation plan, and long term, will we ever seriously examine why our transportation system is our greatest flaw.


*I'm a bit of a weather geek and even I made the mistake of saying the NWS "downgraded" us to an Advisory Monday night. Advisory is an upgrade. But ask yourself this, if a weather geek can get this confused, how many other people went to bed that night thinking it would be a non-event? Another problem is the way the NWS communicates and this should be reviewed. More emphasis should be placed on impact instead of vague nomenclature and the state should have an Emergency Response Meterologist for times like this.