My pick for Election Night is Brahms, but I guess we ought to at least try to focus a little

Vice President Biden appears to be arguing forcefully that the pathetic homeless guy next to him shouldn't lose his food stamps. Oh wait, on closer examination the guy turns out to be Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe. Well, if he's entitled to food stamps, he shouldn't lose them either, should he?

by Ken

I usually try to keep myself occupied on Election Night, since the likelihood is usually pretty strong that most of what happens is going to be upsetting. Tonight I've got the first couple of hours covered with a concert of the Brahms Second and Third Piano Quartets, music I love a lot, and if I take the bus (or rather buses) home that'll lop off another big chunk of time, and then . . . well, I was nodding off during this week's Boardwalk Empire episode, so I really should watch that again.

Nevertheless, it is Election Night, and I feel as if I ought to be contributing something electionesque. It's hard to get terribly worked up, even though there are important races and issues on many ballots. But most of those contests are pretty well decided. Still, I guess there will be people poring over the results, if only because they're genetically wired, or perhaps paid to do so, or (for the lucky few) both, and even I have a few results I'm curious about. But I think our best bet here in trying to care is to seek help from the pros.

For example, Washingtonpost.com's Sean Sullivan offers us "five biggest things to watch":

1. Will Virginia Democrats make history with a sweep?
2. The business vs. tea party showdown in Alabama.
3. Chris Christie’s margin of victory.
4. Detroit is poised to elect its first white mayor in four decades.
5. Ballot measures in Colorado, Washington state and New Jersey.

Some thoughts:

(1) I started out writing a lot about the Virginia governor's race, when it looked as if Virginia Republicans were going to hold their noses and vote for their current nutjob-slimebag attorney general, "Cuckoo Ken" Cuccinelli. For a while the Cuckoo Man did make some modest efforts to try to sound vaguely sane, but his heart clearly wasn't in it (or maybe sounding vaguely sane just isn't within his range of capabilities), and despite the hideous awfulness of his Democratic opponent, Terry "The Bagman" McAuliffe, which you would think would have incentivized GOP voters to trudge to the polls and do what they had to, there were mounting signs of revulsion and outright revolt. Apparently you can push those folks only so far. And then the polls started to get away from Cuckoo Ken and his even nuttier running mate, E. W. Jackson (possibly the only candidate the party could have come up with who can make Cuckoo Ken look, if the light is really bad and you squint hard enough, almost sane).

The Virginia sweep of which Sean speaks would have not just Cuckoo Ken and even-cuckoo-er E.J. succumbing to their Democratic opponents, Terry the Bagman and State Sen. Ralph Northam, but also the race to succeed Cuckoo Ken as state AG going the Dems' way. This race is still up for grabs, and while the possibility is strong that large numbers of Virginia Republican and independent voters may simply sit this election out (and who could blame them?), I'm thinking that the very impossibility of the other GOP statewide candidates may actually win the race for Republican Mark Obenshain over Democrat Mark Herring. We're hearing a lot of talk about ticket-splitting on Obenshain's behalf, and I can't help thinking that there are a lot of Virginia Republicans desperate for someon they can vote for, and in 2013, Obenshain is about all there is.

It's true that a lot of Virginia Republicans may well sit this election out, and who could blame them? Large numbers of highly visible state Republicans have already made clear publicly that asking them to vote for Cuckoo Ken is simply asking too much. If I'm wrong, though, and Herring wins along with Terry the Bagman and Ralph Northam, "it will," says Sean, "mark the first Democratic statewide sweep in Virginia in 24 years and the first time in 44 years the party has controlled all five statewide offices." (He points out the both of the states U.S. senators are Democrats. They're pretty useless Democrats, even by the low standard set by Terry the Bagman, but presumably Harry Reid will vouch for their party affiliation.)

(2) The Alabama jamboree has a certain comic charm. It's Teabaggers vs. Economic Predators for the soul of the Republican Party, "the first big test pitting business vs. the tea party since the two sides found themselves on opposite sides in the government shutdown showdown."

The Chamber of Commerce has spent at least $199,000 to try to help Bradley Byrne win the Republican nomination in Alabama’s 1st district special election. Companies like Aflac, AT&T and Home Depot have given Byrne thousands more. Still, he’s no shoo-in to win the GOP runoff Tuesday. That’s because of Dean Young’s insurgent campaign. A controversial Christian conservative aligned with the tea party, Young has lacked resources and help from national Republican groups. But he’s tapped into a palpable anger with Washington in the Mobile-based district, and he just might spring an upset. If Byrne wins, it will embolden business-minded Republicans in other races on the map. If Young wins, it will be a big victory for tea party grass-roots activists. The GOP nominee is expected to cruise to victory in the Dec. 17 general election.

From where I sit, although you could view this clash of the titan-surrogates as win-win, since either way some horrible people will receive a well-deserved slap in the face, it seems to me more like lose-lose. After all, either way a notably horrible person will win, and the even more horrible people behind him will be celebrating.

(3) As for the NJ gov race, I find it hard to get wrapped up in "margin of victory" nailbiting -- too many factors go into determining it in a race that has been decided as long as this one has, which is to say from the get-go. We have a race kind of like this here in NYC, where Republican Joe Lhota is so far behind progressive Democrat Bill de Blasio that a potentially large number of potential de Blasio voters may simply have seen no reason to trouble themselves with voting. (The NYT's "Afternoon Update" e-mail included: "New York Sees Light Turnout After Lopsided Mayoral Polls.")

Hey, I wish as much as anyone that the reality were different with that big blowhard Chris Christie, but his political instincts at present look better than just about anybody's in the country, and you can hardly blame New Jersey voters for feeling more secure with him than with anything that comes out of the state's Democratic Party off its woeful performance these last four years. I don't mean that as a knock on the actual Dem candidate, Barbara Buono, who seems to me quite praiseworthy, but you can't call her a "good candidate" since not a soul in the state has any idea who she is, except the Democrat running against their trusted Fat Man.

In any case, we know the Fat Man is going to win big, and we know that he has to think about the 2016 presidential situation. But does anyone really believe that his margin of victory is going to make a major difference? (Unless it's, say, only 5 or 6 percent, but does anyone see that happening?) To scared-shitless Republicans, Governor Chris is already their hope of salvation; to the Republicans who control the presidential nomination, however, he will remain about as acceptable a candidate as Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.

(4) Sean clearly has a bug about the racial angle in Detroit, which featured prominently in the piece he directs us back to from August, before the mayoral primary, "5 Reaaons you should care about the Detroit mayor's race." Three of the reasons why we should care were: "2. A field of 16 (!)," "4. Duggan? Dugeon?" (a confusion, quite likely deliberate, between the names of two write-in candidates), and "5. This one could take a while," because of the need to produce usable totals for the write-in votes. Now these are all facts about the primary race, but it's hard to see how any of them are reasons why we should care.

The other two reasons why we should care were "1. Detroit’s bankruptcy" and "3. First white mayor since 1974?" The first is of course a huge deal, but Sean himself wrote, "The next mayor will be under under a statewide and even national spotlight, given the backdrop against they will enter office. And it remains to be seen what, if anything, they will be able to accomplish." Again, then, kind of hard to pinpoint our reason for caring. And as for why we should care about Detroit having its first white mayor since 1974, well, apparently that was thought to be self-evident, because all we were told about was the electoral challenges between former Detroit Medical Center CEO Mike Duggan and the state house. I'm not suggesting that race isn't part of Detroit's struggles, but I would have thought that those struggles are monumental enough that they don't need to be compounded with an automatic race angle.

(5) As to those ballot measures in Colorado, Washington state and New Jersey:

As our friends over at GovBeat noted Monday, voters in six states are weighing in Tuesday on initiatives and referenda. On the line in Colorado is a marijuana tax package and an income tax hike worth about $1 billion together. Two other notable measures: A amendment to the New Jersey state constitution to raise the minimum wage that is likely to pass, and a vote in Washington state over whether genetically modified food must be labeled.

Fair enough, but I won't be losing sleep over this. Tell me tomorrow how it all turned out.

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