We knew George Holding’s race for Congress would be close a year ago and, three months ago, George actually trailed in the polls by three points – then a month before the election the unexpected struck.

When an election’s over it’s human nature for people to say, I did this, or, I did that – and that’s why we won, but that’s vanity speaking. Gary and I don’t agree on much but we do see eye-to-eye on what matters in a campaign – when you’re working in a campaign you naturally think you’re accomplishing a lot and making a difference but, as Gary once told me, More often than not you’re like a frog on a log riding down a river watching the banks go by – and it’s the river not you that’s moving the log.

Gary also told me, ten years ago, after the first time Obama was elected President, Don’t worry Carter. We’ll find a way to blow it – and, in a way, that’s what happened at the end of George’s campaign.

I’m not sure how to describe the way most Democratic activists see Trump (the word loathing comes to mind). But their emotional reaction to Trump is clear: Trump drives Democratic activists a little crazy and that craziness broke loose during the Kavanaugh hearings. And, at that moment, a lot of Independent voters – who were inclined to vote for Democrats because they disliked Trump’s antics – stopped in their tracks.

It was a gift no one had foreseen. It seems, just as sin breeds sin, craziness bred craziness: Democratic activists morphed into mirror images of Trump – on the opposite end of the political spectrum – and, in that instant, in George’s race Independents lost their inclination to vote for Democrats.