♪ I’ve got Elaine on the brain
Shooting through my weather vane ♪
— ABBA recorded a very strange song titled “Elaine.” Ernest Tubb recorded a very nice song about a Blue Eyed Elaine. Pick your ear poison, DJ Hamlet.
Unable to monetize his Weekend Politics Thread headers in the traditional sense,1 Uvular needs must devote his Saturday energies to job searching. So, endure a fairly phoned-in entry in this WPT chrestomathy.
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Contests in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District regularly tops lists of competitive U.S. House elections. Since 2008, the seat has switched from Democratic to Republican and back to Democratic. Elaine Luria currently reps what locals loathe to call “The 757,” having twice defeated one-termer Scott Taylor.
No one who places the tiniest stock in competence, intelligence, ethics, morals, rectitude, truthfulness or a functioning representative democracy would ever sweat whether to fill in the oval2 for Luria instead of Taylor.
And that explains why less than an average of 3.5 percent of the final vote counts separated victor from vanquished in the 2018 and 2020 races. Rightwingers slipped their grip on shared reality decades ago.
Now, voters know what they want. Slightly half of ballot casters along Virginia’s Eastern Shore and in the city named for its beach3 clearly desire an alleged liar, an alleged cheat, a for-sure terrible boss, and a MAGA-mongering misogynist.
Taylor resurfaced recently mucking to make money in Minsk. Devilled if you can find a belligerent bullish on business in Belarus at the exact moment that the Russian Bear barreled into Ukraine from Belgorod? Taylor has you covered.
Contrast that callous calculation with Luria’s latest turn in the national and international spotlight. From her seat on the January 6 Committee, Luria implored, “The Department of Justice must act quickly. I will echo what my colleagues have already said, but more bluntly—Attorney General Garland, do your job, so that we can do ours.”
Now, Uvular, as a voter, knows what he wants. He disagrees with Luria’s demands for a U.S. Navy fleet numbering infinity plus one. He differs with the details of her Israel policy. He would crawl through glass shards to return her to Washington, D.C.4
Perfect does not exist. Good must prevail over bad. A plane of existence where a Scott Taylor constitutes anyone’s conception of a valid and reasonable choice vice Elaine Luria satisfies every component of a definition for surreality.
What warps your worldview this weekend?
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