A Day Late, No Matter
Wait for it!
Along with “ For the ages” anything, Wait for it is one expression that makes my skin crawl every-time I hear it. There, I said it.
Thank you for waiting for it (my Substack article that is).
Less than seven days to go and those “Mid-Terms for the ages” are almost upon us. Again, I won’t run down every race and I won’t go and make some ignorant prediction but what I will say is that we will have some close elections and there will be accusations of cheating as well. That is all expected and I hope that it doesn’t lead to anything stupid but in this country, you just never know.
I do believe that most people are fed up with the BS and want so sort of change but the reality of it all is that even with a change, that BS will still exist. It may have a different color but it will exist.
No matter what anyone says, no one is fighting for America. They are fighting for their jobs, or their party but not America.
In the last 50 years I really can’t recall any politician fighting for America. Believing in this country, as flawed as it may be. Ronnie Reagan may be the last President that fought and won the heart and soul of this country. Don’t laugh, I also think that Jimmy Carter believed in this country, right or wrong. He may not have endeared himself to many but Carter was a true American.
The argument can be made for one or both Bushes but I am not sold on that. Clinton wasn’t a bad President but he wasn’t what I would call a patriot. Obama, please, give me a break. Trump may have proclaimed his love for America and sent fear in our adversaries but that was more of a loose cannon type thing rather than being strong. He mainly marched to his own self interest and that is not the sign of a patriotism. Although, I think he truly loved America, he wasn’t built for greatness like Reagan.
Now we are looking at the mid term elections with zero greatness anywhere to be found. Every candidate on both sides is flawed. Flawed in ways that scares me a bit because someone is going to win and someone is going to sit in Congress or in the Governors seat and create laws that all Americans will have to live with.
I don’t live in Arizona but I have a lot of friends that do and I have been keeping an eye on Kari Lake, Republican candidate for Governor. I like her, a lot. I think she speaks her mind, is well informed and has a very bright future in the party. Statewide and nationally. Polished and intelligent and like everyone who has ever run for office, has a few flaws as well. A DeSantis-Lake ticket in 2024 would win by a landslide.
I have been trying to find a Democrat who I think might be moderate enough to help create a better working environment in Washington and to be totally honest, I haven’t found a single one.
I can’t have a political discussion without reminding everyone that Beto O’Rourke is the absolute worst candidate the Democrats have put up, maybe in history. I think he is a sacrificial lamb in Texas and I do think the Democratic Party wants to see how well he polls to determine his future. I hope for the sake of Texas and America, he gets smashed into some small hole in El Paso, never to be heard from again. He is an idiot. His grandstanding at the Governors press conference after the Uvalde massacre shows he has no clue. There is a time and a place for blaming the Governor and that was not it. He is the poster boy of the media as well and anytime the media gets behind any politician, I know its bad. They love him. Case closed.
One interesting race is Pennsylvania. Mehmet Oz is universally disliked in Pa. Fetterman looked horrible in his debate with Oz and that leaves a lot of open ended questions for the voters to consider. I think that the Democrats felt this was a state where they could pick off a Republican seat but I don’t think they are so sure of that now. Will Fetterman’s mental acuity be an issue? It wasn’t for Biden/Harris, maybe the voters will overlook it and vote Fetterman in. Might be the race of the night.
Like every election night, there will be surprises. There will be stories that will be written for days to come afterwords. It happens every year. Polls are wrong almost as much as they are right so I have started to just follow one source Project.fivethirtyeight.com. There is an incredible amount of data on this site and I do believe that it tries to be unbiased, mainly because it’s just data.
I will opine on Monday about next Tuesday and what it may mean for the market and the economy.