“This election is the most important one of our lifetimes.” Commentators nationwide retort this statement every year. Since the late 1980s, when radio political talk shows hit the airways, every election has been the most important.
The one exception, since arriving on the national airways in 1988, I don’t remember Rush Limbaugh ever uttering that phrase.
Virginia will hold primary elections in the next couple of weeks to determine congressional and senatorial nominees. In the 7th district, both parties will seek nominees as Rep Spanberger will step down to run for Governor in 2025. It would be nice to have a representative who lives in the district.
Virginia state house and senate positions are elected in odd-numbered years, so they are not up this fall.
Maryland held their party primaries in May. I saw many commercials on the local TV stations. Democrat candidate commercials highlighted their stand on abortion and how they would defeat Larry Hogan in the fall to protect abortion rights.
In 2022, the US Supreme Court pushed abortion laws back to the individual states. Won’t these candidates wanting to protect rights in Maryland better serve in Maryland state house offices?
Between 2008 and 2020, I enjoyed watching the party debates leading up to the state presidential primaries. I learned much about the positions of each candidate.
This year’s debate season was short. The Democrats had none, and the Republicans were missing the poll-leading candidate. We never heard from the projected party nominees. The three debates I watched resembled the food fight scene from Animal House. Perhaps the broadcasters want the format to earn ratings and advertising dollars rather than be informative.
One issue was the number of candidates on stage at one time. Rather than one debate of nine, two with no more than four on consecutive nights would work better. The four in each contest could be done by random draw.
There were too many talk-over interruptions allowed. We can only have one mic on at a time. Once time is up, a mic can be shut off. If another candidate wants to respond, they could ring in and be handled in sequence.
I would not like color coding, but a subtitle under each debate moderator’s name indicating “leans Republican” and “leans Democrat” may help inform voters.
Because of the Summer Olympics, the Democratic convention will not be held until August 19, 2024. And their nominee will not be selected until August 21, 76 days before election day. Ohio has a 90-day requirement for candidates to be included on their ballot. The Olympics are not a surprise. The Democrats could have scheduled their convention for July. A workaround would be to have a Biden-Harris ticket on the Ohio ballot, and if the convention selects someone else, “sorry”.
Was there fraud in the 2020 presidential election? We’re not sure. However, there was an appearance of fraud. It would be nice to have an election without uncertainty,
I wrote the above post before the Thursday verdict. We’re in unknown territory. It’s going to be a wild one. What else will come up?
The found guilty party stated. “we’re in for the most important election of our lifetimes.”