GOP Does Well As Dow Jones Average Crosses Major Milestone Of 36,000
(Dan here…originally published 12:11 a.m. Nov. 3. We now know Youngkin won the Virginia governer’s race)
GOP Does Well As Dow Jones Average Crosses Major Milestone Of 36,000.
I am posting before the election results of Nov. 2, 2021, are fully in, but it looks that the GOP candidates will win in Virginia, where Biden beat Trump by 10 points a year ago for the statewide races, with GOP making gains in the House of Delegates that may switch its control to them, although that remains more up in the air. Also in New Jersey, where it was presumed that the Dem incumbent would easily win, the race is too close to call and he might lose. In short, the GOP is doing very well.
Ironically, the stock market has hit new all-time highs, with the Dow Jones Industrial average crossing the 36,000 milestone to reach 36,052. This was the mark that in 1999 in a famous book by James Glassman and Kevin Hassett proclaimed would be reached within a year or so, that time being in the midst of the dot com boom that would crash the next year. So it took until now to reach it. The funny thing is that a year ago Trump forecast that if Biden won, the stock market would crash. Well, it has risen, but it has not helped the Dems. But then, we have long known that most voters really are not affected that much by it.
As it is, at least in Virginia the focus and noise have been all about rising gasoline prices, which have been rising sharply in the last two weeks. Unemployment may be down and the stock market is high, but along with all the weird shortages, all the noise is that Biden has somehow hurt the economy because of the inflation, even though looking at month to month rates, inflation is decelerating. Good chances by next year’s election inflation will be much more clearly under control, but now in Virginia, voters do not see it.
And there is also all the hysteria about critical race theory and a high school boy who also in the last two weeks was found guilty in Northern Virginia of sexually assaulting two different girls in girls’ bathrooms in two different high schools while wearing a skirt. Supposedly there has been something like a switch of 39% by white women from Dems to GOP in this race from 2020.
At this point I still hope that the VA House of Delegates might still hold for the Dems, although I am not optimistic, and that Dem Murphy in New Jersey wins, maybe more likely. At least in VA, the State Senate remains in Dem control as it was not up for reelection.
Barkley Rosser
Also, standing opposite the ACLU on elected school boards (“I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”) is not a good look for liberals, although most likely McAuliffe was too dimwitted to know that was what he was implying. OTOH, Youngkin proposed to spend more and tax less despite the tedious nature of state budgets which must borrow with bond issues and being unable to print money need to maintain a credit rating to float loans. Just goes to show that voters will buy into dimwitted politicians if and only if they like the gift wrap.
https://acluva.org/en/press-releases/why-we-have-and-should-have-elected-school-boards-virginia
Why We Have — and Should Have — Elected School Boards in Virginia
October 15, 2009
By Kent Willis, Executive Director, ACLU of Virginia
In 1992, Virginia became the last state in the nation to allow elected school boards. Within a few years, voters in more than 80% of Virginia’s school districts decided to trade their old appointed school boards for elected ones.
The knock on appointed school boards was that they were too often occupied by unqualified hacks and sycophants who ignored their duties while using the position as a launching pad for political careers.
Now, after only a handful of years, voters in some parts of the state are finding fault with their elected schools boards, the knock being that unqualified people are getting elected and then using their school board experience to seek higher office.
Even if the results have been about the same for both elected and appointed boards, there is a simple, glorious argument in favor of elected school boards. Democracy is the governing principle of our culture and has served us well for more than 200 years. It can be messy and yield unpredictable results, but, generally speaking, the more democracy, the better. If we don’t like the results of elected school boards, we should pay more attention to making them work, not abandon them.
There is also an argument against appointed school boards. It is neither simple nor glorious, though, as it requires a trip through Virginia’s racially-tainted past to be understood.
Appointed school boards are part of the legacy of Virginia’s post-Reconstruction period, during which the state’s white leaders sought to limit the political influence of African-Americans. It culminated in the infamous Constitutional Convention of 1901, which was devoted to codifying Jim Crow practices. At that well-documented gathering, Virginia’s leading statesmen amended the Constitution to require literacy tests and poll taxes and reinstituted felon disfranchisement. They also rejected attempts to allow elected school boards in Virginia…
A more wide spread issue with appointed school boards is their relationship with textbook publisher bedfellows, a long history of corruption independent of racial justice or geography. Elected school boards can take kick backs just as easily, but are more likely to get outed from the inside and more easily kicked to the curb when caught.
Politicization in pursuit of appeasing bigots is not reduced by appointed school boards either, but rather just once removed from the appeasing elected officials that appoint the boards thereby offering the appeasers additional protection from competing constituencies of voters.