By Mark Young
mark.young@manateeherald.com
It’s fair to admit that I’ve had some time to simmer down. Had I knocked on your door for today’s visit as the national election results rolled in, I wouldn’t have been very good company.
There would have been a need to attach a warning label for excessive use of profanity. Yes, I was mad. Yes, I was upset that democrats sent a brain damaged, trust-fund sasquatch to the U.S. Senate, among other crazy outcomes.
But I’ve had some time to reflect and evaluate this election, and there were some good outcomes. No, we didn’t get the expected Red Wave across the country, but we flipped enough seats to take the House.
Let’s face it, we over promised and under delivered despite the realities in front of us that these races were tighter than we wanted them to be.
It’s like having a bunch of people you know tell you that you absolutely have to try out a certain restaurant. They tell you, “It’s the best!”
You get all excited and go to the restaurant and it doesn’t live up to the hype. You leave disappointed, right?
We all wanted that Red Wave. We all expected it. So we squeezed into those wetsuits, broke out the surf boards and headed to the beach.
We got even more excited about riding the big wave because we all saw it happening in Florida first, so we quickly paddled out and all that happened is we all sat there on our boards atop a flat sea.
Bummer. An absolute bummer. But we kind of did it to ourselves. Not us, mind you. It’s just that we assumed that democrats in loony left cities were finally as smart as us Floridians. Well, clearly they aren’t.
But it’s not the end of the world. A wave is coming. It just didn’t happen on Tuesday.
And let’s celebrate the fact that Florida, as well as Manatee County, absolutely crushed the democrats.
So let’s focus on the positive first and accept that we didn’t get to ride the wave, but we still had a great day at the beach. We don’t need to be disappointed.
Gov. Ron DeSantis destroyed Charlie Crist, who now holds the historic record of losing three elections as a Republican, independent and a democrat.
Kudos Charlie. And part of the good news is we’ve probably seen the last of car salesman Charlie, liberal race baiter Stacey Abrams and that pathetic excuse of a human being Beta O’Rourke.
Democrats got wiped out in Florida and a big congratulations to all of our state representatives and our very own Congressman Vern Buchanan.
Congratulations to our new county commissioners Jason Bearden, Mike Rahn and Amanda Ballard who won a convincing race in what has been a historically blue local district.
And a huge congratulations to our newest school board member Cindy Spray, as well as Richard Tatem and Chad Choate.
The city of Palmetto’s Conservative values survived the day with a big win by Sunshine Matthews.
All but two of my endorsements won the day and though I did endorse Kevin Levin over Marianne Barnebey in one of the two Bradenton city council races, I have no issue with Barnebey continuing her public service.
I knew Levin had no shot of winning this race but I don’t endorse based on popularity. I made a promise to you all that I would always give you my honest opinion and that I would provide a substantive argument as to how and why I reach those conclusions.
I kept that promise and I have no issue with the outcome.
The shocker in the Bradenton elections was a big victory by Conservative Lisa Gonzalez Moore. Incumbent Bill Sanders losing this race wasn’t the surprise. We knew that would happen.
I endorsed Kurt Landefeld in this race and Landefeld would have made a fine city councilman. Landefeld landed a number of early endorsements, including mine, because he was largely the only person who stepped up to run against Sanders.
Moore got into the race late and it didn’t take long for the excitement about her to circulate. I thought she waited too long to get in this race and didn’t feel it was appropriate to switch an endorsement.
Once given, it’s the kind of thing that only changes in the face of some scandal. I have no problem whatsoever about not getting this one right. I congratulate Moore and I look forward to seeing what she can do for the city of Bradenton.
At the end of the day, Moore’s victory and a Sanders defeat is good for Bradenton.
I’ll be making a lot more fun of Sanders’ loss in the coming weeks, because rumor has it, Sanders was locked out of City Hall for erratic behavior. Even if he had somehow won, he wouldn’t have been allowed inside. What a hoot.
But we still have a lot to cover and I want to get into why Tuesday night wasn’t the end of the world so I’ll leave Sanders to wallow in the shadow of his crushing defeat on his own for now.
Besides the total destruction of democrats in Florida, the most Conservative Manatee County board ever, and finally a Conservative majority on our school board, there is more good news.
First and foremost, as noted, Republicans will take the House and put an end to Biden’s crazy spending spree and Buchanan will have a lot to do with that as the new Chair of the Ways and Means Committee.
The Senate isn’t lost yet. Keep the faith. There still may be good news coming even as I write this. If not, it may come down to Georgia yet again so pray they get it right this time.
But here’s what everyone really needs to know no matter what happens with the Senate. Republicans will no doubt take a solid majority in the Senate in 2024.
There is an overwhelming number of vulnerable democrats up for reelection in 2024 as opposed to this cycle. Even if the democrats hold onto the Senate this cycle, Biden’s administration still becomes mostly a lame duck with the House Republicans in charge.
House Republicans took a beating in 2018 when the democrats seized power and turned Congress into a joke after two years of attacking Trump. Republicans benefited from their folly and gained a lot of those seats back in 2020. A lot more than what was expected and shrunk Nancy Pelosi’s majority down to a handful of seats.
So if you add those gains to Tuesday’s gains, we have done just fine, even if it was less than expected.
In short, we did enough. Yes, we should have done more. A lot more. Yes, we need to take the time to reflect on what went wrong, but as Conservatives we can do that with logic and intellect.
Those are our best attributes and now is not the time to abandon them as we continue forward this great movement of ours.
Keep the faith my fellow Patriots. All is well. We are still very much in this fight. Stay vigilant my friends. Stay aware and stay informed. Our mission is not over.
