For what they're worth here are a few reflections on last Tuesday.
1. People don't vote for a candidate, they vote for a party. As we saw in the Fetterman/Oz debate debates don't matter. No matter how awful the debate performance voters will stand by their candidate.
Mr. Fetterman has been seriously impaired by a stroke, scarcely campaigned, was completely unable to put together a coherent sentence in the his debate with Oz, and sti;ll won a senate seat.
A candidate doesn't even have to be alive for voters to vote for him as long as he's their party's nomineee. A dead man actually won in a race for a Pennsylvania state house seat.
The country is in terrible shape, but people still voted for their team. The quality of candidates doesn't seem to matter so much as the letter they have after their name.
2. The failure of the predicted "red wave" to materialize strengthened President Biden against those in his party who would've tried to ease him out of running in 2024 had the election been a complete debacle. On the other hand, Donald Trump was weakened by the failure of his endorsed candidates to do very well.
Both outcomes work to the advantage of Florida governor Ron DeSantis if he chooses to run for president in 2024.
3. Mr. Biden's glee at having avoided getting clobbered like most presidents do in the mid-terms is understandable, but a little premature. He'll still probably lose the House of Representatives and may still lose the Senate, albeit not by the margins that some were predicting.
If the GOP does wind up taking both House and Senate then Biden's boasting about not losing as badly as other presidents have in the mid-terms will sound like a man in a sword fight who loses an arm and brags that he didn't lose both arms.
4. Crazy speculation of the day: There's one senator who must be harboring very bitter feelings against his leadership and the president for what he perhaps believes to have been a betrayal.
If the senate finally comes down to a 50/50 split, giving VP Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote and the Democrats effective control of the Senate, what sweeter vengeance might this senator exact than to switch parties and give the raspberry to Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden.
I speak, of course, of West Virginia's Joe Manchin. Manchin would have nothing to lose by making the switch to the GOP since he has no future in West Virginia as a Democrat and no future within his own party which pretty much holds him in disdain.
In exchange for Manchin's crucial vote to pass the party’s $740 billion tax and climate spending law, Manchin was evidently under the impression that Mr. Biden would not do anything to hurt West Virginia's coal industry. Yet last week the president said in a speech that he was going to shut down coal plants all across the U.S.
Manchin was angry and doubtless felt betrayed. He probably thinks that he's been played for a sucker, and it certainly does look that way.
I'm not predicting that Manchin will actually bolt the Democrats, but I'd be surprised if the Republican leadership isn't going to try to woo him away from the party that has pretty much humiliated him if it turns out that the GOP needs one more senator for a majority.
It would certainly be karma from Manchin's point of view if the wooing was successful.
