Sadness

Sadness... one of my good friends from church is now in in-home hospice care for cancer...while this was not unexpected, maybe I didn't expect it so soon, and it does suck, as he will be missed...

Slightly less sad:  Duke hoops.  Losing to MSU is no sin, but last night... I don't know, live by the 3, die by the three, but... the lack of an inside game is A problem to me, mainly because if you have one...one, it's easier to score, and two, teams move their defense inside to contest it, meaning you can shoot open 3s...  in the meantime, I writhe.

https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/711598?unlock=J578UR45EWWDTTDD;

I don't know....if I am Mike DeWine, and my opponent in a GOP primary is Jim Jordan...well, I am feeling pretty happy with myself.  I guess I see a 60/40 win there, sort of like Bush beating Pat Robertson in the NH Primary in 1992; it's a protest vote with plenty of headlines but that has no outward effect on anything. As I have said before...  I don't see Ohio, at least at the top, is Trump territory.  Also, one can argue that the kook factor helps DeWine in the general (like Truman in 48), as he can position himself in the sane lane...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/12/trump-will-reign-atop-gop-until-2024/617300/

https://www.mischiefsoffaction.com/post/gop-conversation

Um...maybe. First, I think that yes, the Never Trumpers are indeed dead; I won't vote for one, certainly none of the new Trump voters would, and these people seldom have the support of the social conservatives who make up the base of the party.  It's one thing to not support President Awesome; it's quite another to make it public.

More seriously... one, four years is a long time; two... part of the issue is that a party is defined by its opponents as much as by its own policies, so... I wonder who/which of the party figures will rise as they battle the Biden Administration? Certainly Trump can do that, but a lot of it will be...old news, and I wonder what the younger voices in the party will do; hell, we HAVE a young wing, it could be argued, compared to the gerontocracy on the other side of the aisle...  

I suspect that at end of the day, while plenty in the GOP are glad for Trump for what he has done -- expanding voter outreach, pumping some enthusiasm into a staid bunch, that sort of thing -- there are quite a few people who are tired of the shitshow, as I like to say, and are more than willing to bet that they can ride the coattails to victory in 2024.  2022 will be the test of that, and I am glad to watch...