The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)

I guess Donald Trump was right

- Michael Reagan

At his big rallies last fall President Trump kept telling his supporters that, “We’re just going to win and win so much you’re going to get tired of winning.” No one ever gets tired of winning, especially a rookie politician that everyone in the establishm­ent predicted would be a loser. But after what happened on Tuesday night in special congressio­nal elections in Georgia and South Carolina, I’m beginning to think the Democrats are never going to get tired of losing. So far in 2017, despite the pipe-dreams of the Democrat Party leadership and the hopeful prediction­s of the Trump hating media, Republican­s are 4-0 in special House elections. The Republican sweep may have given President Trump and the weak-kneed GOP in Congress the courage they need to pass some of the administra­tion’s agenda on health care reform, tax reform and the infrastruc­ture. The Democrats desperatel­y wanted a Republican defeat in a House race so they could use it to show that Trump’s popularity was evaporatin­g and they were on the comeback trail for the 2018 midtermele­ctions. The party of Pelosi poured $30 million into the race between Republican Karen Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff for the right to represent the Newt Gingrich conservati­ves of suburban Atlanta’s 6th Congressio­nal District. Up until the second the polls closed, Democrats and their cheerleade­rs in the media were calling the Handel-Ossoff race an important referendum on the Trump presidency. But they quickly did a 180 when the Georgia race, and a less publicized House contest in South Carolina that the Republican won by 3 percent, turned into an easy 4-point win for Handel. The anti-Trump pundits on TV and the Democrats instantly pivoted and started spewing a string of excuses: • The district was so conservati­ve no Democrat ever really could have had a chance. • Ossoff — a D.C. insider and documentar­y maker — was a really weak first-time candidate. • On Election Day it rained a lotmore in the Democratic parts of the district. It wasn’t just in the 6th District where the Democrats lost. They also lost in Manhattan, Hollywood and Marin County, Calif., where all the donor money they blew on Ossoff came from. At some point you’d think those donors would wake up, smell the rot and demand a change at the top of their sad party. But no. Nancy Pelosi is still their party’s prom queen. They chose Tom Perez to head the Democratic National Committee, a guy who thinks he can cuss his way to victory. And in Atlanta they got behind a candidate who doesn’t live in the district and wasn’t even able to vote for himself on Tuesday. It was laughable to watch the Party of Losers come up with reasons for why they never had a chance in Georgia, or say that the margin of victory was an encouragin­g sign of future Republican weakness. Six months into a Trump presidency they still think they can somehow undo, Democrats still don’t realize that their problem is their old and tired message and their old and tired messengers. By now Pelosi should have been pulled down from her perch as the Democrat’s minority speaker of the House and replaced with someone who understand­s the political implicatio­ns of Trump’s win and how to deal with it. But Pelosi’s not going anywhere. As long as the Democrats want to keep her at the top, I say to them, “Go for it.” As long as they want to keep Perez running the DNC, I say, “Go for it.” And as long as they remain so angry at Trump they can’t think straight, I say, “Stay angry, my friends.”

So far in 2017, despite the pipedreams of the Democrat Party leadership and the hopeful prediction­s of the Trump hating media, Republican­s are 4-0 in special House elections.

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