San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Biden has won race, but celebration won’t last
mise or seek peace. He wouldn’t even compromise with Donald Trump.
And he punishes people who go against him.
It will be gridlock. Biden also faces a potential split among Democrats, with progressives eager to move on their agenda and moderates reading the election results as indicative of a much redder landscape than they expected. It’s not a pretty picture. The biggest thing Biden has going for him: He’s almost surely a oneterm president, not because he’d be defeated for reelection but because he’ll be 81 during a 2024 campaign and probably won’t run. That gives him the freedom to forget about scoring points for himself and concentrate on what will actually help the country. Why Dems underperformed: We were tantalized with the the possibility of a blue wave once again sweeping ashore on election day. What we got was muddy water.
Democrats hoped they could flip the Senate. They might still, but it looks like it will depend on winning two Georgia runoff elections Jan. 5. That’s a long shot. Democrats hoped they would increase their House majority. Instead, it got narrower.
It’s clear that the Democratic Party has lost its way. We no longer generate much excitement outside the Sunday morning talk shows.
We have to stop telling voters what they should do, and instead start listening to what voters want us to do.
Democrats, and that includes me, have become the elites. And we will keep disappointing ourselves in elections unless we rethink what we are doing.
Simple solution: The tugofwar over vote counting has made it clear that we need one nationwide standard in federal elections.
Let the states and counties continue to decide the guidelines for local races, but when it comes to the federal part of the ballot, there should be a firm set of rules.
And we need to give people a way to vote digitally. After all, if the financial world can figure out how to make make billions of dollars in electronic transactions, if you can pay just about all your bills and even your taxes electronically, then we should be able to come up with a safe way to vote online.
Another rule ought to be that the vote has to be in the registrar’s office by 8 p. m. on election day. None of this waiting 17 days for the mail to come in.
You get the ballot a month ahead of time. Don’t wait around.
Boarded up: The city looks dreadful. The plywood coverings on the office towers and stores clearly discourage people from visiting.
It looks like we’re preparing for a hurricane.
There’s no way we can recover economically with a look like this. Please, owners and landlords, take the boards down.
Serve chilled: With the end of summer and arrival of standard time, parklet dining has lost its charm. The early darkness and falling temperatures have made eating outside a cold, damp and lonely experience.
Bet on it: Forget the pollsters — from now on I’m going to rely on the bookies for accurate political odds.
Bookies have to pay out if their predictions are wrong. Pollsters just get booked onto another talk show where they try to explain that they were really right.
Besides, if you’re a candidate, you have to pay a pollster for their mistakes. At least with a bookie I’ve got a shot at getting some money out of the deal.
Want to sound off ? Email: wbrown@ sfchronicle. com