Gabriel Debenedetti’s Politico post “Democrats sweat the details in Georgia special election: Party officials fear the potentially demoralizing effect of a defeat” may be overstating the psychological effects of a possible Ossoff defeat in the GA-6 election this Tuesday. The party pros are not going to fold up in the fetal position if their candidate doesn’t win. They will be focused on the next important race within hours. And savvy observers know that Ossoff has already won in two important ways: First, getting to “toss-up” status in the polls one day out is a major accomplishment in a suburban, white majority southern district. And second, given Georgia’s track record with respect to voter suppression, it is quite likely that Ossoff would have won the district without a run-off, had there been no voter suppression. Ossoff, a smart, but not particularly charismatic candidate, has already demonstrated the application of Goethe’s insight, “Boldness has genius and magic in it” — especially for Democratic candidates.

On the other hand “If Ossoff can pull off this victory in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, it will deliver a much-needed positive jolt to the party apparatus,” writes Paul Kane at PowerPost…”An Ossoff win, just a week after Northam’s convincing primary victory, would signal that the Democratic establishment is still alive and kicking…An Ossoff victory — far from a sure thing — would also signal that the GOP, despite controlling all of Washington, remains more beset by ideological divisions and personality disputes than the Democratic Party. Neither party appears particularly unified, but Democrats have been bracing for anti-establishment candidates’ knocking off party veterans in the same manner that Republicans have endured in recent years.”

So now there’s a TV ad that tries to link Ossoff to Kathy Griffin’s sense of political humor and the Scalise shooting, as Julia Manchester reports at The Hill. “The unhinged left is endorsing and applauding shooting Republicans,” the ad’s narrator says…“When will it stop? It won’t if Jon Ossoff wins on Tuesday,” the narrator continues.” Of course the Handel campaign was all crocodile tears in denouncing the ad. My hunch is that any voters dumb enough to fall for this one were a lost cause anyway. But it’s probably too much to hope that it will actualy help Ossoff with the very few remaining ‘swing voters.’

There have been more than 150 mass shotings this year already, with only one by a guy who claimed to be a progressive and who  expressed hatred for Republicans. Guess which incident got the most coverage. In addition to President Trump’s encouragement of violence during his campaign, the displays of hypocrisy, demonization and political amnesia among haters of Democrats have been off the charts. One conservative radio host, Jesse Lee Peterson has chartacterized Democrats as “children of Satan.”

Fenit Nirappil reports at The Washington Post that Virginia Democrats are unifying behind Ralph Northam’s gubernatorial campaign to defeat Republican Ed Gillespie, founder of the Repubican ‘Freedom Caucus,’ which has done so much damage to the tone of American politics.

Some encouraging stats from the VA governors elections, reported by Holly Stouffer of WHSV-TV: “Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam secured his spot with 303,429 votes in the Democratic primary. Ed Gillespie had 160,039 votes in the Republican primary…If you take a look at the overall totals for the governor’s race, there’s nearly a 200,000 vote difference between the Democrats and Republicans across the state…More than 540,000 people voted for the two Democrats and the Republican side had around 360,000 voting for the three candidates on the ballot.”

And Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley note at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, “Solid African-American turnout is also a Northam priority, and his apparently robust performance with that bloc of voters is helpful. His new running mate might help in that regard, too. Attorney Justin Fairfax (D), an African-American lawyer, won the lieutenant gubernatorial primary after he narrowly lost a 2013 primary for attorney general. There’s some evidence that having a black candidate on the statewide ticket can help with black turnout. Rounding out the Democratic statewide ticket is Attorney General Mark Herring (D), who deferred to Northam in the gubernatorial race and is seeking reelection to an office he only won by a minuscule margin in 2013.”

Here’s an ad being tweaked for use in the campaigns to defeat Republicans Sens. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Dean Heller (Nev.), Ted Cruz (Tex.), and Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R):

There is such a thing as “good guilt,” at least in the political sense, and Javier Panzar’s L.A. Times post, “These Democrats feel guilty for sitting out the 2016 elections, and they aren’t waiting to register voters for the midterms” shows how it can work.