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The Retreads

They Still Think We're Waiting Three rooms, one week, and the quiet part said out loud The three showed up this week and said the quiet part out loud. They still believe the country is waiting for them to explain what happened. Obama on taste, Iran, and the unfinished bill Barack Obama stood in Cleveland and Detroit and treated the last decade as an interruption of his plan. On the White House he offered the line that landed: the current president “seems very focused on home renovations. He should be on HGTV,” and “He’s got the White House looking like Saddam…

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The Empty Platform

Democrats Will Regret Running an Issueless Campaign Democrats have entered the final stretch of the 2026 midterms without a domestic platform they can defend. Their campaign rests on opposition to Donald Trump, the promise of investigations, and a generic claim of “government corruption” that they have attached to the current administration. They name affordability as a problem and then decline to offer a remedy that survives contact with either the record of the last Democrat administration or the proposals still endorsed by their candidates. The structure is familiar. It is the same structure that failed the out-party in 1998 and again…

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The Macmillan Event

Harold Macmillan Arrives in Time for the Midterms Events, dear boy. The October streets, the intact ham aisle, and the midterm ranking that does not move by itself. The Streets Did Not Look Like a Student Protest The streets of Limoges, Paris, Marseille, Lyon, and Milan did not look like a student protest over classroom conditions or the price of bread. A nineteenth-century town hall in Limoges burned until its roof collapsed. The tourist office went up in Lyon. Rioters entered and damaged town halls in Marseille and Lille. Looters emptied hundreds of shops in a single day. Police made between…

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Defeat Them

Defeat Them Rush Limbaugh spent his career telling the country one thing. Democrats must be defeated. He said it on the air every day. He put it on the cover of the February 2001 Limbaugh Letter. A Roman warrior stands in EIB armor against the coliseum. The words beneath the figure are simple. Defeat Them! That cover was not decoration. It was the operational summary of the work. The same imperative applies now. The radicalism that treats political opponents as existential threats has announced itself in advance. The statements began with Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Sen. Chris Murphy. They continued with…

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The Dark Horse Senate Race

Republicans Can Win New Hampshire New Hampshire is not Massachusetts. The independent lane, the ground game, and the race that can flip the map. New Hampshire is the dark horse Senate race of 2026. I have had my eye on it for months. The campaign is playing out as I expected and it remains a very winnable race for John Sununu. Public polls still show Chris Pappas ahead by mid-single digits. Ratings have drifted toward Lean Democrat. Those instruments have misread this state before. They miss the independent and undeclared voters who decide races here, and they miss the non-response pattern…

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The Willow Bend Deal

The Arena and the Legacy of Bad Public Financing Deals Plano ISD just locked up to $250 million of future school-tax growth for a Dallas Stars arena without a public vote. Plano ISD just agreed to hand over up to $250 million of future school-tax growth to help build a new arena for the Dallas Stars at the site of the dying Willow Bend Mall on the city's west side. . The board approved the deal. The city council signed off. No public vote was required. On paper the arrangement looks tidy. In practice it locks away money the schools could…

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Talarico’s Skin Suit Campaign Ad

Fisking Talarico's Latest Ad A skin suit is what the spot is selling. It is not a senator. Thirty seconds. A Texas flag. A Monday Night Football audience. James Talarico in a suit, telling the state he will put Texas before any party, that he called out Joe Biden, that he worked with Republicans to pass the largest property tax cut in Texas history, that he will fight for oil and gas jobs, that Ken Paxton will be a lapdog, and that he will bring checks and balances back. #TexasSenate AdImapct: James Talarico releases new ad touting his bipartisan credentials and…

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A Look at House Campaign Spending

Follow the Money Two documents landed on the same day, and they do not require a commentator. Julie Merz of the DCCC told donors the committee needs $17 million by October 22 or it will leave winnable races on the table. The Congressional Leadership Fund filed $32.8 million across 31 House races with the FEC. One is a plea. One is a wire. Rush Limbaugh spent years teaching a simple rule. Follow the money. Money never lies. Tonight it spoke twice, and it said the same thing from opposite ends of the ledger. The plea Merz opened with confidence. The party…

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Where’s Jimmy?

Where is James Talarico? Twelve days. An empty calendar. Campaigns abhor a vacuum. Ken Paxton put the question to a San Antonio crowd with the president in the building. Where is Talarico? Twelve days. The chant did not need a speechwriter. It needed an empty calendar, and the calendar was empty. A Senate nominee does not get to vanish for two weeks in October and have the silence treated as neutral. Nature abhors a vacuum. Politics abhors one faster. The space fills. It fills with theories, with old footage dressed as news, with a spokesman’s sentence that answers less than it…

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The Ultimate Cipher

The Lie Needs a Voice Two rooms. One mouth. No self. A cipher is a person through whom someone else's text is read. The room writes. He pronounces. N.B. March 4: Why Talarico Won't Win Texas. September 15: Losin' Texas. September 29: Deductible Jesus. Same file. Last week was the theology. This week is the man who needs two scripts. You have now seen the same man occupy two rooms and deny that the door exists. On September 9, Brooke Taylor put the question to him in English Texas still speaks. He said he would oppose men in girls' sports if…

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