Nancy Pelosi just announced that she would not be seeking her position as Speaker of the House or Minority Leader.

We won’t find anybody as smart as she is and I heard that Adam Schiff isn’t entering the fray because he’s considering running for senate.  Pelosi’ stop two deputies, Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, were both born before chocolate chip cookies were invented.

Surely we can find someone young, vigorous, and smarter than Kevin McCarthy, which is a very low bar.

Okay, so here’s the deal.  At every swearing-in ceremony for new citizens, the League of Women Voters – a long standing non partisan group of do-gooders across the country volunteer their time to register voters and educate people on the voting process.  Voting is the first right of citizenship.

I am blessed to have a good friend who volunteers with The League.  For 20 years, they register voters all across the greater Houston area.  They go to high schools, civic events, and just about any place they are needed.

Once a month, they report to the swearing-in location at 5:00 am to set up for a ceremony that does not start until 9:00.  Usually about 2,000 people are sworn in.  They register 88 to 90% of attendees.

They make the wheels of democracy work.

Until now.

Not only have they being kept from registering voters, they are even banned from attending.

Judge Doofus says he didn’t know this 20 year old tradition was a 20 year old tradition. However, he says he was only appointed in 2019 so how can we expect him to know everything?  Seriously, Judge Goofy?

We know exactly what he was doing.  He was saying that people who play by the rules, study hard, pass all necessary exams and paperwork, and harbor a deep dream of living in a democracy don’t need to carry that to extremes, like you know, voting.

The League has reacted graciously and say they are disappointed but they know they are guests at these events and will accept that.  But deep inside in a tiny whisper they are saying, “What the hell, you ungracious jerk. You had to go out of your way to do this.”

Best I know, we have not deserted you.

I think maybe everybody is kinda stunned over the Red Wave that turned out being Little Princess Barbie pink.  It was kinda like when you wash your Klan robe with you MAGA hat.

Texas: We are the most backwards state in the country.

Florida: Hold my possum jerky and watch this…

And after getting beat so badly that alligators wouldn’t even eat him, Trump announced that he’s running for president of the Semi-United States of America. He challenged democracy and turned up face down.

I have been distracted by the Republicans in my county who howled that the county stayed as blue as we flipped it four years ago, plus we added two new Democratic wins – one county commissioner (we now control commissioners court 4 to 1), and one new state representative.  Republicans were convinced that we cheated at the ballot box of damn course.

They showed up loudly! and in force on the day the vote was canvassed, provisional ballots were rejected or certified, and several races were recounted. They came with lawyers, bean counters, loudmouths, people who were just mad and didn’t exactly know why, and a couple of guys who were born before chocolate chip cookies were invented.  We countered with sending one lawyer – never send two lawyers because they’ll spend all day arguing with each other -, three retired grade school teachers, and some righteous precinct chairs who had read the Texas Election Code.  They were headed by a tiny gray headed African American woman who was one of the first people to integrate the University of Texas and then worked her way to be an executive with AT&T. God made her short so she could chew butt and then spit it out over a bonfire she had simultaneously started by stomping her foot to keep the devil from coming up and making a ruckus.

Twelve hours later, Democrats emerged with the vote total rising in every single damn race.  We didn’t just beat them, Honey. We beat them good.

They went home with their tail between their legs.

It was so much fun.

In England there are signs everywhere to “mind the gap.” If we translate that into English we would discover they are talking about the gap between the platform and the train. Since public transportation really isn’t a thing here in Texas, we can certainly borrow that term and apply it to our politics.

We see two gaps that threaten long-term stability in our country. The first gap is the gap between how many people consider themselves to be moderate, liberal, progressive, or leftist and how many of those politicians actually end up representing us in Congress. Yet, the percentage of total voters registering as Democrats is growing. So, there is a gap between the number of representatives that are Democrats and the number that should be Democrats.

That’s a problem that’s not easily fixed. As we have seen in Texas, the GOP has a stranglehold on the state. Very few particularly like any of the Republicans that occupy state offices and yet they continue to vote for them. This has been a two decade tradition. They have rigged the game to make it easier for them to win. It will take a doubling of efforts to get that turned around and we see the same thing nationwide.

The second gap is one Democrats can address and address immediately. This is the gap between what gets done in Washington, Austin, and any other government center and what people actually think on the issues. Take any issue and you can see clear fault lines of where the public actually is on the issue. You could talk abortion, gun control, health care, public safety, education, or any other issue.

What Americans think on these issues is pretty clear. Overwhelming majorities agree on numerous planks on all of those issues. Yet, we are told America is a center-right country with center-right values. The problem is that this statement has no basis in fact when you actually look at public opinion polling on each of those issues individually. The GOP is on the wrong side of each issue and it isn’t even particularly close.

Democrats collectively make the mistake of getting off message. Either they overshoot these widespread popular opinions by suggesting things beyond what the general public want or they bungle up the messaging with slogans that don’t reflect the will of the people. These things are simple. Let’s keep them simple.

For instance, Americans want background checks on gun sales, don’t want guns in the hands of dangerous criminals, and generally don’t want automatic weapons in anyone’s hands. These are easy things to keep hitting over and over again. Yet, Beto O’Rourke introduced the idea of gun confiscation. That pushed the envelope too far and made him seem extreme. So, stick to background checks, keeping guns away from criminals, and an assault weapons ban. That’s easy messaging that will resonate with the majority.

It’s about simple messaging. When people understand what you are for and they are for the same things they vote for you. When they think you are an extremist or if they don’t understand what you are for they don’t vote for you. It’s really as simple as that. You find out what they like and then keep repeating that you are for that and the other side is against that. You keep repeating that until they understand. You keep repeating it. That is how you close the gap.

As we wail and moan over election results in the Lower 48, I want to direct your attention to Alaska’s single congressional race.

Mary Peltola, the at-large congressman from Alaska has been re-elected to a full 2-year term despite the fact that her two Republican opponents together got more votes than her mere (+ or -) 47% of the popular vote.

I think this is a possible glimpse at our future. Let me explain.

Alaska has adopted a ranked-choice primary system that makes California’s “jungle primary” look like a stroll through the zoo.

In Alaska, candidates are ranked as to preference, and receive votes not only by a earning a voter’s first choice, but also by their 2nd, 3rd, and even 4th choices.

They say that this is experimental, and is a way to negate a tendency toward extremes in typical primary voter choices. The narrative goes that typical primary voters are from the extremes of each party, so successful candidates tend to be from the extremes of the Left and Right. Moderates are often trapped behind the door among the also-rans.

It is this system that gave Alaskans the choice between two Republicans and one Democrat, splitting the Republican vote between TFG-endorsed Sarah Palin and Nick Begich, a candidate whose family legacies include a former congressman, a state Senator and a US Senator.

In short, Alaskans were offered a choice between a Democrat, A MAGA Republican and an establishment Republican.

In the other 49 states, only one of the Republicans on a primary ballot go on to compete in the General.

If it is true that America has evolved from a two-party state to a three-party one, Alaska has given us a view of a possible future where elections show the true cross-section of American politics through “Plurality Rule”.

Either that (and remember, this is Half Empty writing here), or the ranked-choice system will be rapidly dismantled by a still-shocked Alaskan electorate by a 50.9% majority vote.

“We all know that Democrats are evil.” — Anonymous Facebook poster

The poster above wasn’t really anonymous, but I didn’t want to besmirch her good name by posting this for everyone to see. We often post on friends walls and simply assume everyone that reads it thinks like we do. Beyond the more global implications that we will get to in a minute, I had to grapple with the fact that someone was calling me evil.

Language is a precise thing. I’ve been trying to teach my daughter that ever since she was little. We correct her grammar. We correct her spelling. More than anything, we correct the syntax that she uses when making statements and asking questions. Words matter. One can’t help but have a tiny bit of introspection when something like this happens. Am I writing off thousands of people as evil myself?

The midterm election results are still flowing in. We probably won’t know the exact breakdown for a few days, but it seems that we have more or less maintained the status quo. There might be an isolated senator here or a representative there, but the numbers should roughly shake out about the same. Of course, how anyone interprets that is clearly up to them.

In fact, the battle in Georgia is prominently on my mind. It pits Raphael Warnock against Hershel Walker. One of those is a minister that most people say is a good man even if they disagree with his stances on the issues. He is thoughtful, intelligent, and caring. His opponent is none of those things. Maybe Mr. Walker was intelligent at one time. Maybe his brain was irreparably damaged from years of concussions on the football field.

Even the most hardened of Democrats, liberals, or leftists have to feel sorry for Walker. He was clearly used for his fame and name recognition in spite of the fact that no one could claim he has any business being near the Senate. That race is almost even as I write this. I’m not sure which way it will go and that thought is absolutely frightening. It means that nearly 50 percent of the voting public either think substantially like the woman above or don’t think at all.

Either way, we have to acknowledge eventually that we are electing people. Our democratic system isn’t built to elect ideologies. It was built to elect people. Maybe in some places you could pull the lever for red or blue and simply trust the party to appoint the right people accordingly. We don’t live in one of those places.

Perhaps, we have been far too eager to defeat an ideology and have allowed ourselves to vote for bad people because we see the other side as the enemy. I also know this is an gross simplification of the problem and steers us into “both sides” territory. Perhaps that is part of the problem altogether. Perhaps one side is doing this far more often than the other. At this point, I have to admit that I am biased and therefore not completely capable of arbitrating this point.

These are all fair criticisms and all points of view are welcome. The point is that someone like Hershel Walker shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near Washington. He never should have gotten this far in the first place. An election is a decision between two or more people. As citizens we need to elect the best among us. If we want the best possible government then we can do nothing less.