. . . and then a real Red Wave finally appeared and struck Mar-a-Lago with hurricane-force winds and torrential rains.  And then it turned north and struck the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee.  And then it moved into Georgia to wash away those who voted for Hershel Walker.

There's an almost poetic irony to the late-late-season arrival of Nicole to Florida right after the election.  Unfortunately, after it's through with Florida, the storm's track has it passing uncomfortably close to Atlanta.

The political Red Wave that the Republicans were predicting never materialized.  The unconventional politician John Fetterman flipped Pennsylvania blue by beating the quack television personality Dr. Oz. The races in Wisconsin, Nevada, and Arizona are still too close to be called.  And the Senate race in Georgia between the Rev. Raphael Warnock and former UGA football phenom Hershel Walker is virtually tied and heading to a Dec. 6 run-off election as neither candidate got 50% of the vote.  

Warnock led Walker by some 35,000 votes, or 0.9% of the total, but still came up short of the required 50% + 1 needed under Georgia law to win.  Many of my out-of-state friends have asked how people in Georgia could vote for someone as spectacularly unqualified to be a Senator as Walker over the experienced and erudite Rev. Warnock.  What they fail to grasp is that voters didn't make an assessment of the relative merits of the two candidates.  To many voters, apparently half of them, the decision was to vote for a Democrat or a Republican, and they chose the Republican, regardless of the shortcomings of the candidate.  I sincerely doubt more than a handful of the most fanatical voters actually thought Walker was more qualified for the Senate based on his experience, intelligence, or character than Warnock.

A thought experiment for my Democrat friends: imagine that the 2024 Presidential race had Ron DeSantis running on the Republican ticket.  Now imagine that by some bizarre set of circumstances, his Democratic opponent turned out to be, say, disgraced former congressman Rod Blagojevich.  Would you reject the criminal history and questionable moral judgement of Blagojevich and vote for DeSantis as the lesser of two evils? Or would you hold your nose and vote for Blago, dispite his personal shortcomings?  That's the dilema  many Georgia Republicans faced.

As it stands now, both the Democrats and the Republicans have won 48 seats each in the Senate, with 4 seats, including Georgia, still up for grabs.  Warnock's chances of winning are more dependent on the results of the other three races than almost anything else.  If the other three remaining seats all go to one party or the other, so that control of the Senate is already decided, Georgia Republicans will not be enthusiastic about turning out to vote for Walker, a dishonest, pathological liar with several mistresses and a troubling history of abandoning his children and of violent behavior.  Republican turnout will be low in the run-off election, and Warnock will win.  

But if the run-off will decide which party controls the Senate, it will be easy for the Republicans to frame the election as a referendum on Biden's presidency.  "Vote for Walker and put an end to Biden's socialist agenda."  Political ads would tie Warnock to Biden, and as Biden is deeply unpopular among Georgia Republicans, enthusiasm for Walker would be much higher and be could likely win the election.  

Red Wave, Blue Wave, whatever. In the meantime, maybe we should thank Mother Nature for sending Nicole our way.  Someday, a real rain will come and wash all the politicians off the streets.