Bit of Politics, Bit of Substack

Under the radar in Delaware on Tuesday, while we were all wrapped up in the debate, they held their non-presidential preference primary. Two things of note: first, Sarah McBride won the Democratic primary for the House seat. When she wins the general in November, she will be the first transgender member of Congress.

Second, John Carney won the Wilmington, DE mayoral race. There is no general, this was it. What makes that noteworthy? Carney is currently the Governor of Delaware (term limited) and he is the first sitting Governor to become a mayor. He is not, however, the only Governor to also serve as mayor. Think about who that other person might be. Keep reading, I snuck the answer in later in this post.

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The whole cat-eating Haitian meme lie thing might end up having an incredible benefit to us, the side of truth and light, in November. Probably not what you think. So here are a few questions:

• Which state has the largest population of Haitians?

• What percentage of Haitians in that state vote, compared to general turnout?

• Could the Haitians flip the state?

• How close do the Presidential and Senate elections look in that state?

• Who remembers what Tim Russert put on his little white board the night of the 2000 election?

Here you go:

Yes! It’s Florida! Haitians comprise about 2.4% of Florida’s population, it’s projected that about 300,000 are eligible to vote. Their turnout rate is 9% higher than Floridians in general. Source.

In 2018, Rick “Medicare Fraudster” Scott won the Senate race by about 10,000 votes, which was less than 1%. While we’re no fans of polling, if you read them, you’ll see that the current race between the Fraudster and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is in the low single digits. The Convicted Felon bested Joe Biden by about 4%, or about 400,000 votes. Not enough Haitian voters to change that, BUT, between the effort the Harris-Walz is putting into the state, the campaign Mucarsel-Powell is running, AND the abortion and pot constitutional amendements, anger over the cat-eating meme might be just enough.

As an aside, Taylor Swift has shows scheduled in Florida on 18, 19 and 20 October. Early voting in Florida begins on 21 October.

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Now, on to Substack. As more and more creators are utilizing the platform, Substack is rolling out new features. One of which is chat. It’s written and not video, but they’ve got it. It looks a little complicated, but I’m sure I can figure it out. And so… would anyone be interested in a chat session? We could discuss a specific political topic, or a more general Q and A. If there is another debate, we could all “watch” together via the chat.

Also about Substack. I think of myself as a blogger, and I write posts. According to what I’ve read from Substack, this is actually a “newsletter”. The idea is to publish once a day. I normally stick to that, creating posts for launch at 6:00 a.m. ET. (Every day but Saturday.)

With blogging, it was always that if something arose, even a quick hit, you just added it to the blog, at the top, because the presentation was that readers could see everything posted in reverse chronological order. Substack is a “push” to subscriber’s emails.

Sometimes, like today, I combine disparate things into one blog post newsletter because that’s the model. Rarely do I post more than once. As election season heats up, there will be time-sensitive information it pays to post immediately. So what say you? (Be honest, I won’t take it personally.)

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And now for our political trivia answer — Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown. Governor of California from 1975 - 1983 and 2011 - 2019, mayor of Oakland 1999 - 2007. I asked my husband if he found it discouraging that I recalled Brown being governor and mayor as soon as I heard about John Carney and I don’t know my husband’s phone number. (I don’t know ANYONE’S phone number, if I lose my iPhone, it’s all over for me.) He said no, he knew me. Sigh.