The Patriot Post® · Thursday Short Cuts

For the Record

“Imagine someone close to you has a drinking problem. Night after night, he goes out to the bars on wild binges, chugging down 10 to 12 beers a night. But then, in a supreme effort to reform himself, the drunkard cuts his consumption down to a six-pack every night. He starts boasting of his amazing self-control and good behavior. That’s analogous to President Joe Biden’s tall tale that he’s one of the greatest paragons of fiscal responsibility in modern times. … Biden’s administration has led the federal government in spending and borrowing more money in his first 20 months in the White House than any other president in history. No one else comes close to his record of fiscal recklessness. Biden is not even halfway through his presidential term, and he’s already signed into law federal spending over the next decade that will exceed $4 trillion. … Biden has turned the Potomac River into a sea of red ink. But sure, he’s the No. 1 deficit-cutter of our time.” —Stephen Moore

Upright

“Florida … demonstrated how to run an election. Florida has a ‘find my ballot’ app that allows voters to track their ballots, like one can track a letter or package, or a checked bag on an airline. The software tells voters when their ballot arrives at the counting station, when it is opened and when it is counted. This process greatly enhances election integrity and faith that the outcome is legitimate, protecting against conspiracy theories. Florida should be the model for the nation. They’ve come a long way from ‘hanging chads’ in the 2000 presidential election.” —Cal Thomas

Observations

“[Tuesday] night was not a referendum on Democrats’ excellence in governance; it was a referendum on Republicans lack of seriousness. Democrats will misread this and keep doubling down. So if Republicans get serious and drop the frivolous [crap], 2024 could look very different. IF. Culture war isn’t frivolous [crap], by the way. It’s key. But it’s the icing on the cake of competent governance and earning trust with voters (see DeSantis, Ron and Youngkin, Glenn). Icing on a bag of weird ain’t gonna win you elections.” —Ben Shapiro

“The nation, deeply dissatisfied with the way the Democrats were running things, looked at what the GOP offered as the alternative and concluded, ‘Nope, I’ll stick with what the Democrats are giving me’ in a lot of key places. If you can’t elect a lot of Republicans in an environment like this, when can you?” —Jim Geraghty

“What concerns me the most about the election is that all these angry explanations for why we lost, i.e., we came off as angry and extremist, including on abortion don’t ring true to me. What does is the possibility that the electorate has permanently changed.” —David Limbaugh

“Americans long for calm and normalcy more than they want to burn things down.” —Ben Domenech

“For all the affection Trump enjoys from his base, there’s a reason why it’s Democrats who are the most eager to make him the face of the GOP.” —Jonathan Martin

Non Compos Mentis

“Well, I think if [candidates I endorsed] win, I should get all the credit, and if they lose, I should not be blamed at all.” —Donald Trump

“I got [Ron DeSantis] the nomination. He didn’t get it. I got it. And I thought that he could have been more gracious, but that’s up to him.” —Donald Trump

“Now that the Election in Florida is over, and everything went quite well, shouldn’t it be said that in 2020, I got 1.1 Million more votes in Florida than Ron D[eSantis] got this year, 5.7 Million to 4.6 Million? Just asking?” —Donald Trump (“It is impossible to compare the turnout for midterm elections to the turnout for presidential elections because the turnout for presidential elections is always higher. What can be compared, though, is the margin of victory. In 2020, Trump won the state by 3.3 points or 371,686 votes. DeSantis won the state [Tuesday] night by 19.4 points or 1,507,081 votes.” —The Daily Wire)

Dumb & Dumber

“The Latino vote is not the same everywhere! There are huge generational differences and in Florida [the] population of older voters (more likely Rs) [is] much larger than younger. Socialism does not play there. And there is a massive disinformation problem in Spanish language media.” —former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki

“[John] Fetterman as a nominee at some point for president — um, I know there are some variables, obviously. But I just, you know — what he did in the super-red, deep-red parts of Pennsylvania, and the way that he ran ahead of Biden, as you were saying, ran ahead of Trump, I mean, it just makes you wonder about his future.” —MSNBC’s Katy Tur