As we noted earlier in the week, soon-to-be-former Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer finally relented and permitted Republican Senator-elect Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania to attend new member orientation. McCormick's name plate showcased his new title, and he took beaming photos outside his new office. Meanwhile, back in Pennsylvania, the longtime incumbent Democrat who lost to McCormick still won't admit he's lost the race. The math has been clear for more than a weak that Bob Casey was defeated and that he has no path to victory. That didn't stop him from enlisting the help of Democrat elections lawyer Marc Elias to try to steal the election. It won't work, but the attempt is galling nevertheless. With all the counting finished in Philadelphia, including adjudicated provisional ballots, McCormick's lead is still in the tens of thousands. More provisional ballots are now being tabulated elsewhere, and it's not going well for Team Casey:
Why is Casey still dragging this out? The margin is close enough to trigger a recount under state law, though recounts rarely flip very many votes -- let alone thousands, or tens of thousands. McCormick allies say a recount is Casey's prerogative, but a waste of time and taxpayer money. What Elias and Casey are really doing, however, is keeping the clock running for as long as possible as they hope to entice some friendly judge into ruling that a bunch of illegal, invalid "votes" should be counted:
They're trying to reframe 'following clear-cut election laws' as 'Republican efforts to disenfranchise voters.' Bob Casey has lost this election, so he's reduced to trying sue for law-breaking in order to revive his dead campaign. It's not going to succeed, but as I said on Fox earlier, this episode marks an ugly and pathetic closing chapter to Casey's journey. He started as the son of a famous politician, turned into an unremarkable career politician, and is now cementing his legacy as a sore loser and election denier at the back end, having achieved astoundingly little in his three terms in the Senate:
Here's what I was talking about, in reference to Elias' failed gambit in Florida, back in 2018:
Mr. Elias, who is representing Senator Bill Nelson, the Democratic incumbent, in the Florida recount, has been at the center of an unusually large number of high-stakes political fights. His role in the Florida battle, in which Mr. Scott’s lead has shrunk from nearly 60,000 votes at the end of election night to less than 13,000 votes out of more than eight million cast, has thrust him even further onto center stage as the Democrats’ lead lawyer and spokesman, making him a tempting foil for Mr. Trump. Last week, Mr. Trump called him out by name, referring to “this guy Elias, who represented Hillary Clinton and a lot of very shady things.” That was an apparent reference to Mr. Elias’s secretly arranging funding from two of his clients — Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee — to compile research that became the dossier about Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.
Yes, Elias spearheaded the funding for the infamous and bogus Steele Dossier, which was at the center of the Russia "collusion" hoax. And yes, Elias tried to swipe Rick Scott's previous Senate victory off the board in a race that was closer than the one he's fraudulently trying to steal in Pennsylvania. He failed. Scott prevailed, and was just re-elected to the Senate by roughly 13 percentage points. Unless the courts throw out the law in Pennsylvania, in order to include thousands and thousands of flagrantly illegal "votes" from counting, Elias will fail again. And Casey will finally have to cope with the reality of being an ex-Senator.
And this is just perfectly shameless. It's not about the law, or democracy, or 'counting every vote.' It's about Democrats winning, by hook, or by crook:
UPDATE - Open lawlessness from some PA officials, and another (belated) call for McCormick: