Important headlines for May 16th - A school board can change your world
Bottom Line: These are stories you shouldn't miss and my takes on them...
Excerpt: Two parents whose children were killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre are expected to announce Tuesday that they are running for seats on the Broward School Board.
Lori Alhadeff and Ryan Petty are holding a news conference at 10:30 a.m. in Fort Lauderdale.
Alhadeff, 43, whose daughter Alyssa was killed, is expected to run for the District 4 seat, which Abby Freedman, 51, now occupies. Freedman said last month she plans to run for re-election in the district that includes the Parkland high school, but she has yet to file with the Supervisor of Elections.
School Board member Nora Rupert, a longtime critic of Superintendent Robert Runcie, is the only incumbent the group plans to support. She is being challenged by Mikelange Olbel, who runs a nonprofit for underprivileged youth.
Hot Take: If you want real change this is what it's going to take. New candidates and real local engagement. I've said it countless times and it's a true today as ever. The government closest to you is the one that's the most likely to impact your day-to-day-life. While local only elections have a paltry 18% average voter turnout level think about the actual impact. If you believe for example, that the policies of the Broward School District allowed Nikolas Cruz to fall through the cracks – consider the implications of these school board elections for a moment. And that's not to speak of the education itself.
Dems Poised for Victory in 2018 - and Trouble in 2020 Damon Linker, The Week
Hot Take: This headline is true, and this premise is correct though not really for any of the reasons cited in the story. As I've long articulated there are historical patterns to the American electorate. While outliers exist, there are very specific likely outcomes to almost every political circumstance in our country based on a long history with a traditional two-party system. As articulated in my midweek midterm election updates – the Democrats are poised for victory. Based on historical factors - independent of anything to do with the specific politicians themselves – there's a 92% chance Democrats will fare best this November. And to the second part of the headline...
It's early but here's the headline that'll give the most ardent leftists heartburn – there's a 65% chance that Donald Trump will win re-election in 2020 (independent of who he is or any other specific factors). More on those dynamics next year but for now, and until we're past all of the primaries, all of the "soft" explanations for why this or that will or won't happen are meaningless and in this case accidentally accurate.
Until tomorrow...