Michigan's Hidden Numbers

On Tuesday, almost all political attention was understandably put on who would win the Democratic primary in Michigan. And I watched that closely, too. But there were two other races in Michigan that I watched almost as closely that got very little attention. To be clear, I didn't watch them so much for much for who won, but another reason.

The races were the Democratic and MAGOP primaries for governor. And it was those two races in particular because it let me compare apples to apples. In the Senate primaries, the Democrats had a tight race of great interest in the state. The MAGOP Senate primary was a foregone conclusion, In the governor primaries, though, both parties had competitive races. And therefore, interest within the sate was fairly equal.

That's why it was important, because the numbers I was looking at was how many people voted in each race.

As readers here long-know, I've been yammering for a while about voter enthusiasm. That it's one thing for people to tell polls they approve of or support one candidate or another. But it's another for a poll to break down "strongly support," "moderately support," "support," "moderately disapprove" and strongly disapprove. Because it's the extremes, the "strongly," that are the people most certain to go out and vote -- most especially in a Mid-term Election, when turnout is historically low. Candidates need major "get out the vote" efforts to convince people in the middle to vote. But those on the extremes? Those are generally the people who say they'd crawl on glass to vote.

And this year, polls have shown that Democratic voters are overwhelmingly on the extremes compared to MAGOPs. Independents, too, who are polling very heavily Democratic for this Mid-Term. That's why we've begun seeing stories about MAGOP officials concerns about their party's voters not voting this November. Which brings us to that number in Michigan.

And while news analyst focus was on who won the Democratic Senate primary, my own attention, as I said, was in the equal Michigan governor primaries. And in that, the numbers broke down this way --

People who voted in the Democratic governor primary: 1,496,471

People who voted in the MAGOP governor primary: 930,890.

To call this a big difference is not being fair to big differences. That's results that are on a completely different level.

To be clear -- this is not a predictor of who will vote in the General Election. Primaries are different animals. Sometimes people in a party may not vote because they like both candidates on their side, and don't care who wins, so they do vote. Sometimes people don't vote in a primary because they don't like primaries, they aren't the "real" election. Sometimes, even, people don't even know there's a primary. Furthermore, someone in a primary, if a person's favorite candidate loses, they might be disappointed enough not not to vote. So, the people who vote in a General Election will be different from the vote in a primary.

But -- and it's a hugely important "but" -- it is an indication of who the enthusiastic voters are. And that's a critical base for a party since, not only do candidates not have to work as hard to ensure that they'll vote in the General Election, but those are (mostly...) votes the candidates can count on.

Yes, it's true, as I noted, a primary can split votes a bit if the race was bitter. But since these are the most motivated voters, they are the ones who -- for the most part -- feel strongest in their opposition to the other party.

So, yes, early polls do show that MAGOP Mike Rogers is ahead of Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. But those are general polls, not polls of how strongly voters support or disdain the other candidate, nor not only who says they are most likely to vote...but is most likely to vote. Especially those who have shown it.

I have no idea what will happen in the Michigan General Election for the U.S. Senate. I only know that if I was a candidate, I would much rather be on the side that is starting out with 1,496,471 people who voted in the primary, compared to the side that had 930,890 who voted.

MAGOPs can absolutely make up the ground. They'll likely have a lot more money to spend. Just know three things: 1) Having the most money is great, but if money counted as the most important things in elections, JEB! Bush would have been elected president. 2) The more money a party spends in one state, the less it has to spend in others. And 3) while MAGOPs can absolutely make up the ground...that's a lot of ground to make up.

The Watermelon Trilogy

'Tis the season -- for watermelon, that is.  And because I love watermelon, we're going to have an extravaganza of three videos on cutting the suckers.  I posted this originally in 2023, so it's time to bring it back.

(None of these are exactly the way I cut them, since I tend to buy the smaller, round, seedless "personal" watermelons.  But the last two videos are pretty close.)

First though, we'll start with one of the those "50 People Try to..." videos from Epicurious.com.  Not shockingly, what these people are failingly trying to do is cut a watermelon.  The fun of the video aside, this is the best instruction at the end for how to cut a watermelon in wedges.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIzXsLTf998

The next video is short, only about a minute and comes from The Rachael Ray Show. It's close to how I've been cutting my watermelons, though with a couple of slight differences.

The first is that they're using a bigger watermelon that I use, but it's still basically round, like mine.  The other is that her Senior Culinary Producer is showing how to cut spears, and I like cubes.  So, I just easily slice the rinds off the ends and then easily cut the spears in to cubes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QcjtUSX07c

Finally, this third video is a new way I've learned, and definitely weird on the surface, but I've been trying lately with reasonable success.  I'm not sure if it's faster or better than my "lattice" version above, but it may be, and it's fun.  It comes from Alton Brown from Food Network.  This is for a regular watermelon, but works just as well with one of my round fellows.  And it uses...a cheese slicer!  (Hey, I told you it was weird.) 

However, after the video, I have an update about this from when I first wrote about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpc2l5iD7fk

After making a wheel, I then turn it into cubes by making cross-lattice cuts.  I haven't mastered a smooth move with the cheese slicer, but I'm getting better.  And if I leave too much watermelon on the rind -- that's fine, I just snack on it while continuing with the cutting.

My update is that, although I like this method because it's sort of fun (and works), my skillset isn't at the level of Alton Brown, and I haven't yet mastered the ability to get nice, smooth edges.  And what I discovered as a workaround is that I could still use this basic method but instead just use a basic paring knife.  It's perhaps a touch slower (and not as fun), but worked really well.

That said, if you want to try the last method and use a cheese slicer, but don't have one, this is the model I got here from Amazon.  It's currently being sold for $15 -- down $2 from its list price.  It has 4.4 stars out of 5, and I like it because the screws on the side make it easy to remove the guide bar (which is necessary to take off, in order to use for slicing off the watermelon rinds.)

Of Paramount Importance

In an op-ed for the New York Times yesterday, David Ellison -- owner of Paramount Skydance -- tried to explain to those concerned with his company's attempted purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery that he wouldn't be influenced by his relationship with Trump. Paramount Skydance recently put the purchase on hold until 2027 after numerous state Attorneys General filed a lawsuit to block the sale.

Ellison wrote that he felt it was the inclusion of CNN in the sale, combined the Paramount Skydance already owning CBS, that was the major cause of concern for many. However, while it is a big concern for critics, arguably a larger issue -- so much so that it was the foundation of the lawsuit -- is Paramount wanting to buy Warner Bros., which is seen as anti-competitive in the movie and TV industries.

Still, though, in his defense of the purchase of CNN, Mr. Ellison wrote --

“I believe that news should be based on facts and truth. Great news organizations like CNN and CBS News are here to tell it straight down the middle. That requires newsrooms that reflect the whole world, not one side of it. And it requires independence. Our journalists will continue to answer to the facts and to all the people they serve — not to any party or cause.”

Ellison added, "While I was silent, others were happy to write my story for me. No more."

The words sound noble, and he might even believe them. However, as the expression goes, actions speak louder than words, and since Paramount Skydance purchased CBS, and put Bari Weiss in charge, the legendary 'Tiffany Network' has been ripped apart. Long the most respected leader in television news, after installing a new anchor for its evening news broadcast, and changing editorial policies, viewers noted that stories showed what seemed to be less "independence," and a more Trump administration-friendly reflection -- and CBS has quickly plummeted to a distant third in the ratings, with its lowest numbers ever.

Additionally, they have dismantled 60 Minutes, the decades-long gold standard of news magazine shows. New leadership has been installed, and many of its respected journalists have quit. Not because the changes were based on facts and truth, or telling stories "straight down the middle," but because "all the people they served" turned out to be management meddling and pushing the focus to the right.

Not to mention the firing of Stephen Colbert, the # 1-rated late night talk show, because (supposedly) the show was losing money. Never mind that no longer having this highly popular platform means that CBS no longer has an outlet from which to promote its own series, which would seem to be something extremely valuable.

It's also worth noting that when Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post, he made similar, noble pronouncements about the news. Yet policies for the editorial pages soon began changing, even to the extent that when the paper had written an endorsement of Kamala Harris for president, Bezos blocked it and no endorsement was issued. So, skepticism of David Ellison's words are doubled. Not just from Paramount Skydance's actions with CBS, but the experience of others.

And again, his words may be well-meaning and something Mr. Ellison truly does believe (the reality of CBS actions aside...), but as we've seen not just with Jeff Bezos but other billionaires and corporate leaders, when you have so many business ventures, many of which might require government approval, the best intentions have seemed to carry far less weight than the most noble of words. "Far less" shall be referenced here to mean "zero."

I hope that David Ellison actually does mean what he writes here. And I hope, should the Paramount Skydance merger go through with Warner Bros. Discovery, that he sticks to it. I don't expect it, given the evidence of actions taken thus far, and given that Mr. Ellison suggests that CBS News had been biased to the left, when what he was really seeing was not "bias" but a news division that did what news divisions do, which is not roll over for the administration and instead criticize flaws when they exist (which appears to be substantial, considering that the public seems to think such is the case, given Trump's 32% approval), but it's possible, and I live in hope!

Most of all, among all my hopes here, I hope -- for many reasons -- that the merger does not go through.

For all his best intentions, I don't think that David Ellison was successful in assuaging the concerns of critics. And in some ways, for how he wrote his own story, may even have reinforced them. How much this was influenced by his multi-billionaire father Larry Ellison, who is far-right and a strong supporter of Trump and the main force behind all these corporate buy-outs, rather than what David Ellison most believes and want, I don't know. We can only go by the evidence thus far, by the words written, and by fair-competition issues created by other aspects of the merger. And what happens next in court and in the boardrooms, we'll find out.