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Bartender, a tall glass of Simon Rosenberg with a shot of Tom Bonier please . . . [1]

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Date: 2022-11-12

. . with perhaps a sprig of Michael Moore, though not much, because of a lingering 2000 bitter aftertaste.

In a story here last Friday, I recommended my pre-election “self-care” program:

Five Steps on Surviving the Next Four Days: Step 1: MSNBC is not your Friend. Turn it off . . . Step 2 was “Pretend you’re Michael Moore,” Step 3 was GOTV, Step 4 was “Watch Hot Tub Time Machine” or anything from that genre, and Step 5 was Repeat 1-4, especially GOTV.

My TV moratorium even extended to comedy, including even my never-miss trio of Noah, Colbert and Seth Myers — For the last two weeks, I had no sense of humor other than the Hot Tub Time Machine — Craig Robinson and Jessica Paré in the Tub variety. (OK — not just humor for the latter).

But I forgot one more step I took — “Follow Simon Rosenberg and Tom Bonier on Twitter.” Those guys were the light at the end of the tunnel, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the calm before, during and after the storm. While Moore’s optimism was mostly his gut feeling, Rosenberg and Bonier were data-based, and now validated by the outcome:

x Some things I'm thinking about this Sat am:

- bad week for MAGA, Trump, Putin, autocrats

- good week for democracy, Dems, Biden, Zelensky

- as votes get counted Ds performance gets more impressive

- still waiting on red wave

- GOP looking at Trump rn👇 1/https://t.co/X8mG4Dxl6i — Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) November 12, 2022

I’d also add Kos and Kerry’s The Brief, which had Rosenberg and other fact-based optimists on, and continually stressed that perspective, rebutting the MSM crap. And also The Palmer Report and Tomi Ahonen.

Simon and Tom and Kerry and Kos were only cautiously optimistic, but my expectations for the election went beyond theirs and turned out to be too high, because of this crude calculation:

1. The generic ballot was about even on election day (especially after correcting for the bogus late R polls). So were key Senate races. 2. To win the House, D’s needed about 3-4 points above the generic ballot. 3. Over the summer, in Kansas and NY-19, the Dems (and choice) position outperformed the polls by about 10 percent. 4. Factor in Bonier’s work on youth and women’s registration increases. 4. Because of the passage of time and onslaught of crime/inflation hysteria R ads, plus MSM aiding and abetting, discount the summer 10 points to five points.* 5. Late in the game, factor in the heavy D leaning EV totals and percentages. Presto — D’s maintain House and win 2 more Senate seats.

So for me, anything less than holding the House and increasing the Senate would be disappointing. I now realize this was setting myself up for a fall, but I needed it to plow forward with my GOTV, unsaddled by anything dark. It’s the trade-off on this quadrant:

My choice was to be happier before the election, though risking disappointment if there’s a bad result. And Rosenberg/Bonier/Kos/Kerry gave me the basis for that. At least then you’re happy in one time period. If you’re pessimistic and there’s a bad result, you’re miserable before, after and during. My problem was defining and accepting a good result.

But after four days, I finally agree it’s a good outcome, thanks, not just to Simon, Tom, Kos and Kerry, but my revised expectations.

And youth voting, while perhaps not as great as anticipated, did make the difference in close races and continues to have the potential to upend everything in a progressive way, so support:

Finally, in case you missed it:

My NYC Marathon GOTV Experience

* I think I should have further discounted this. Among other things, I overestimated Dems’ ability to overcome the Andrew Cuomo-generated NY State Gerrymandering.

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