Far-left magazine Slate wished sleepless nights and “crushing regret” on failed Senate candidate Cal Cunningham, D-NC, who blew the Democratic Party’s chance to control the upper chamber for “a little kissy-time.”
Frustration with Cunningham reached such heights in the article that the author, Christina Casterucci, broke with a long-standing Democratic tradition of ignoring adultery within the party’s ranks in an article titled, “You Blew it, Cal Cunningham.”
“What were you doing in July?” she wrote.
“… Most sensible political candidates were hosting virtual meet-and-greets, making phone calls to donors, and visiting influential community institutions,” she continued. “Cunningham, meanwhile, was inviting his lover to his house for a little playtime.”
After his missteps came to light in early October, Cunningham pulled a Joe-Biden special and chose to stay hunkered at his sister’s home for the final month of the campaign, rarely emerging for an appearance.
Rather than try to replace him, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee doubled down.
During a visit from Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, Gov. Roy Cooper, also a Democrat, reassured him that they would drag Cunningham “across the line” somehow.
But after it became clear that he could not close a nearly 100,000-vote deficit against his rival, incumbent GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, all bets were off.
Cunningham finally conceded the race on Nov. 10 .
“He knew full well that his indiscretion could tank his candidacy,” Casterucci wrote. “He evidently just didn’t care.”
After the news broke and his mistress threatened to go public, Cunningham reluctantly admitted to sexting Arlene Guzman Todd, a Democratic strategist who is married to an army veteran.
A few weeks later, the National File confirmed that Cunningham had a second mistress, Anne Gregory Teicher.
But violating marital fidelity and cuckolding a fellow member of the US military were not his worst sins.
“Cheating on a spouse is bad, but cheating qua cheating is not an unforgivable moral sin,” Casterucci wrote.
Tanking the party’s socialist agenda was his true crime.
“He held the entire Democratic political agenda in his hands,” Casterucci wrote. “The Senate was up for grabs, and the North Carolina race looked like one of the party’s best shots at unseating a Republican. ”
And betraying that agenda will come with consequences worse than the breakdown of a marriage and the disruption of his children’s two-parent home.
Cunningham’s indiscretion threatens life on earth as we know it.
“In the age of rapidly accelerating climate change and its attendant famines, natural disasters, and refugee crises, it is not an exaggeration to say that Cunningham jeopardized the wellbeing of every person on Earth for his own fleeting moment of personal satisfaction,” Casterucci wrote.
Shattering the Left’s pipe dreams of statehood for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, “Cunningham’s loss makes it all the more certain that Republicans will hold the Senate for the foreseeable future,” Casterucci wrote.
Her criticisms did not end with Cunningham.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, bears blame for hand-picking the shameless rake.
“Schumer recruited Cunningham for the race, and his Senate Majority PAC spent millions supporting him,” she wrote.
The pick seemed like a good one at the time.
Cunningham had held elected office for only two years, from 2001 to 2003, in the North Carolina Senate, so he did not have radical votes on record.
When he was chosen, a Democratic operative said he had the “fewest vulnerabilities for Republicans to exploit,” Politico reported.
But Cunningham’s personal exploits turned his candidacy into a money pit.
The Senate race recorded the highest spending for a seat in the nation’s history. The campaigns and outside contributors spent more than $280 million.
With Tillis’ victory, Republicans control 50 seats in the Senate compared to 48 for the Democrats.
Two runoff elections in Georgia will determine the winner of the final two seats.
“I hope Cunningham pays close attention to politics over the next several years,” Casterucci wrote.
“I hope he follows every episode of the McConnell-controlled Senate that, unless the Democrats win both runoff elections in Georgia in January, will make Biden’s presidency a faint shadow of what it could have been.”
Democrats believe that they can win these races and use Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote in a Senate split 50-50. But even those hopes may disappoint them, since the presidential contest has not yet been decided.
Still, widespread voter fraud in Georgia, including alleged hacking into the state’s Dominion voting system, makes victory for the Democratic candidates more likely.
Georgia’s so-called audit and recount appears to be as closed to transparency as the initial count.
“The training and directives issued today do not comport with your stated goals yesterday and do not satisfy our concerns that gave rise to our request for a hand count in the first place,” the Georgia GOP wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
