HOW DEMOCRATS CAN WIN BOTH GEORGIA SENATE RERUN SEATS ON JANUARY 5

From Worldometer (new deaths from COVID-19 yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9     1093    4732        1185       246          82

July    22     1205    7128        1293      1120         572

Aug    12     1504     6556       1242       835         130

Sept     3      1094    5886        830     1083         174
            9      1208    6222        1136      1168          82

Oct      8        957    6420          730       967        160

          21     1225     6849           571       703         85

Nov     4      1199       8192         276       511         74 

          11       1479    10178         564       550         60

          14      1260       8823        727       449         53

          17      1615     10502        676       472        118

          18      1964     10970        754       587        124

          19      2065     10758        644       584        115

          20      1999     11136        521       562          88

          23        972       7951        344       481         65

Summary:  Wow, a significant drop.  Let's see what happens tomorrow.

As expected:

• Ken Jennings, a former “Jeopardy!” champion, will be the game show’s first short-term guest host after the death of Alex Trebek.

Jennings is noted for winning 74 straight times.  He will moderate his first show on January 11.

Now that the GSA has approved the transition, the only political game in the country are the two Senate runoff elections in Georgia.  This posting will be pundit-worthy,  meaning boringly specific, so many of you should just come back tomorrow when I attempt to determine the truth about our first Thanksgiving. 

When Barack Obama became president in 2009:

• He had the benefit of a House Democratic majority, and a Senate that was 49-49, with two Independents voting with the Democrats.
• This is why Obamacare became law. 
• In 2011 the House turned Republican, making legislation tougher.
• In 2015 both sides went Republican, making it impossible for Obama to do much, including trying to add a Supreme Court associate justice.
• In 2019 the House had a Democratic majority, but the Senate remained Republican, making Supreme Court appointments a breeze for Republican President Donald Trump.
• From 2021 the House will remain Democratic, but the Senate currently has two more Republicans, and the balance will be determined by those Georgia reruns.  
• If both seats are filled by Democrats, VP Kamala Harris becomes the deciding vote, allowing President Biden considerable freedom.
• If only one, and certainly two, reruns are won by Republicans, President Biden will have difficulty doing anything too ambitious.

68% of Georgia's eligible citizens voted.  Not as good as Minnesota's 80%, but better than the 55% of Oklahoma.

The Georgia turnout was surprising in these ways:

• The Black voter turnout was relatively low from the expectation.
• The Never Trump Republicans leading to a Biden victory was not as significant as you might think, for two legendary Republican suburban counties, Cobb and Gwinnett, ejected Republican local government executives for Democrats

Here is the ethnic breakdown of Georgia:

• 52%  White
• 32%  Black
• 10%  Hispanic
•   4%  Asian
•   2%  Other

Status of races:

• Jon Ossoff (D) is 33, while David Perdue (R) is 70.
• Perdue was caught in an insider trading scandal and more.  For those reasons, he refuses to participate in the December 6 debate.  He is a millionaire who is accused of buying his initial election to the Senate.
• When the two candidates faced each other before the November 3 election, Ossoff shredded Perdue so devastatingly that videos from their exchange went viral.
• Ossoff interned in the office of former Congressman John Lewis.  Science degree from Georgetown and M.S. from the London School of Economics.

• 
  Kelly Loeffler (R) is White, Raphael Warnock (D) is Black
• Loeffler is enmeshed in a stock scandal and is linked to Q-Anon.  She is also critical of Black Lives Matter and is extremely conservative.  Is wealthy.
• Warnock is a pastor at a church in Atlanta where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.  The National Review says he is a radical.  But this publication is a conservative magazine.

Georgia has not elected a Democratic senator since 1996.  Here is the state runoff policy:

• Nov. 18:  voters can begin to request an absentee ballot.  The return can be by mail or official drop boxes.  Must be received by 7PM on January 5.
• Dec. 7:  voter registration deadline.  Can be done online.  If a person will become 18 by January 5, that person can register.
• Dec. 14:  in-person voting begins.
• Jan. 5:  last day to vote.  Polls close at 7PM

Points of interest:

• Initial betting odds favored Warnock and Perdue.
• Betting odds have slightly shifted in the Democratic direction.
• As of a week ago, the GOP had a -400 (80%) chance of having 51 or more seats.
• Democrats had a +275 (27%) chance of gaining 50 seats.
• Note:  given any type of betting odd, go to the right column under ODDS CALCULATOR and CLICK ON THIS.

• Spending will be high:

This will be the first time there's been a Senate runoff in Georgia since 2008. According to Kantar/CMAG data, nearly $245 million will be spent on the Georgia runoffs on TV and radio ads since Election Day by candidates and outside groups. This has gone up since last week with expanded buys mostly by outside groups American Crossroads ($40.3m) and McConnell affiliates Senate Leadership Fund ($32.2m). Candidate spending most is Ossoff with more than $43 million, followed by Loeffler with $41 million, Warnock with $36.9m and Perdue with $28.8 million

So how can both Democrats win those Senate seats to overcome those almost overwhelming odds?

• Hope Donald Trump shows up to support the Republican candidates.  His request for another recount should tick off a number of locals.  Plus, let's face it, he's immoral, arrogant, misogynistic, racially provocative, etc.
• Democrats can look forward to the high presence of Obama, Biden, Harris and an assortment of celebrities.
• Make obvious that in the next four years Georgia will have a lot more Federal money coming into the state with Democratic Senators.  Senator Schumer can promise at least one of them an Appropriations Committee seat should Democrats prevail.

• 
  Have Michael Bloomberg quietly donate $100 million for the two Democrats.
• Find another $100 million, in addition to all the above.
• Nail Perdue and Loeffler for illegal stock trading.  Keep bringing up their greed.
• Give voters this choice:  DO YOU WANT TO BUILD A FIREWALL FOR THE REPUBLICANS TO PREVENT MAKING AMERICA BETTER...OR INSTALL TWO DEMOCRATS FOR A MORE PROGRESSIVE AND SAFER AMERICA.
• IMPROVE THE BLACK VOTE TURNOUT!  Just a 10% increase will make that crucial difference.
• Follow up with potential democrat voters...again and again and again.  Make family and friend connections work, with Stacy Abrams leading the way.
• ENHANCE THE YOUTH VOTE!  Bring in rock stars.

I'm now down to #34, and Pyotr (Peter) Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto is it.  He did so much for music, but the reason I select this particular piece is that in 1958 Van Cliburn played it, with Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3, to win the first International Tchaikovsky Competition.  That year I was on my way to Stanford and not all that much interested in classical music.  Van Cliburn's victory changed that.

The timing was monumental, for Sputnik had embarrassed the USA in 1957, and this contest was designed to demonstrate Soviet cultural superiority during this relative peak of our Cold War.  Kind of reminds you of Jesse Owens winning four gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics of Hitler.

The setting for the then unremarkable 23-year old Van Cliburn was fearsome.  This was his first international trip.  The Soviet Union was a bitter enemy.  A group of 50 best pianists from 19 countries were invited to Moscow to compete against a formidable group from home.  Dmitri Shostakovich chaired the effort.  When the dust cleared, the judges had to ask Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev if it was okay to award an American.  Their leader replied:  Is he the best piano player?  Then give it to him.  Van Cliburn returned home to a ticker-tape parade in New York City and his recording of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 was the first classical recording to sell more than a million copies.

Said he, I remember the evening I arrived in Moscow.  The people were so friendly.  That's the same reaction I had when I first went to that Soviet city in 1988 before the Fall of the Berlin Wall.  The people were so friendly.  I wondered how they could be so nice in such a dangerous nation.  And it was so sincere.

Van Cliburn, being gay, had major problems in the American society of those days.  While important, he semi-retired in 1978 at the age of 44.  However, in 1987 he was asked to give a formal recital at the White House for the summit meeting between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, the first time he took the stage in nine years.  That gathering led to the end of the Cold War.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 455 to 30,046, the first it closed above 30,000 in history.  President Donald Trump had a one minute press conference on this 30,000 record.  It was to brag.  He actually had no clue that the market broke that mark because he was leaving office.

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