X-Files 30 Anniversary Retrospective: Home - 30 Years Ago Today One of the Most Controversial Episodes In TV History Aired

 

By the fall of 1996 I was basically locked into watching The X-Files every Friday night and not looking forward to its moving to Sunday in just two weeks' time. (I had no idea how that would not only turn the show to mainstream hit but revolutionize first network and then all of television as a result.) And on October 11^th 1996 I saw 'Home' complete with the first viewer discretion warning I'd seen associated with The X-Files.

I didn't know until much after the fact just how much controversy was associated with this episode. Immediately after it aired everybody and their grandmother raised a public stink to Fox and they immediately took out of syndication. Home wouldn't be aired again until 1999 at which point it had been released as part of the collection of VHS tapes that aired many classic X-Files episodes.  Naturally once the DVD's had been released in 2002 the networks couldn't come up with a good argument not to syndicate it and both the Sci-Fi channel and other cable networks (such as the horror network Chiller) would do so. But its controversy remains to this day: Comet, the cable network that currently has the syndication rights to it rarely reruns in, usually saving it for special occasions.

Here's the thing, even by the standards of what The X-Files aired during Season 4 Home isn't really the goriest or most gruesome episode. A month later The X-Files would air Sanguinarium which is by far the bloodiest episode in the entire run of the series and even by the standards of today is a gush in blood in a way that might turn the stomach of fans of Ti West. And Leonard Betts famously has us wading in surgical waste, has a decapitated head and a trunkful of cancerous tumors and Fox had no problem airing it after the Super Bowl that year when it became the most watched episode in the show's history. Yet despite all of that I do understand why even in an era when The Walking Dead is in its fourth spinoff (I lost count) cable channels might be wary of rerunning it. And that has less to do with the blood and gore then what Home is really dealing with.

As I've written in previous articles this is the first episode that Glen Morgan and James Wong wrote after returning to The X-Files in Season 4. They'd left the show in Season 2 to try their own ambitious FOX series: Space: Above & Beyond, which despite positive reviews and decent ratings was canceled by the network. Chris Carter and Ten-Thirteen welcomed them back with open arms. After their first script aired there's a possibility Carter might have wondered if he should have been so hasty.

During the first two seasons Morgan & Wong had perfected the Monster of the Week standard, essentially created Skinner and The Lone Gunmen and given us our first real insight into the Smoking Man. By the time they left The X-Files was on its way to its first Emmy nomination for Best Drama and was about to go from cult hit to mainstream one. So there's a part of me that wonders if they'd come back deciding to poking at that constructs of the series they'd done so much to build. Glen's brother Darin had tried to deconstruct the show in a satirical lens and achieved iconic status. Morgan and Wong seemed to be trying to do the same thing in each of their four scripts, only in almost all of them they were being deadly serious.

As Robert Shearman brilliantly phrases it in his rave for this episode:

If anything (Morgan & Wong)  seem more unforgiving of The X-Files now that it's a big hit; there seems to be an anger to the way they take its conventional limitations and smash them. Home kicks off their reign of terror in the most controversial way possible…Its teaser kicks off with a child being born with the help of rusty kitchen implements – a fork to prod it out of the womb, scissors to cut the umbilical cord – and the screaming baby is then taken out and buried alive in the mud. The senses are revolted.

The episode is, of course, much criticized, but it is actually very hard to be more revolting then this. There's a brutality to the story which is sickening – there is probably no murder as tense in the entire series as that of the sheriff and his wife. But its hardly just a collection of disturbing set pieces and gore. Instead its an attack on US values and the family system, and more raw and more blunt then you could ever have expected on network television.

And I suspect its that reason, not the gore and bloodiness that have made certain cable stations, well, squeamish about rerunning it these days.

The title for the record has many meaning not the least of which that it’s the name of the town where all these horrible things take place: Home, Pennsylvania. That may also be part of the reason cable is reluctant to air it: if Home was in Mississippi or Wyoming the more liberal stations might be more inclined to put it on the air these days. It would be easier to accept the idea of the Peacock family – which we are told in the first act are the latest in a line of centuries of inbreeding – if they lived in red state America. (There's a hint late in the episode that the Peacock family were Confederates sympathizers at one point.) And it might be just as easy to accept the folksy sheriff – who despite being African-American is named Andy Taylor(a brilliant Tucker Smallwood) and very much has the same values of the character he's named for – if they actually lived in the South.

But by putting it in Pennsylvania it's a lot harder to take. Now don't get me wrong; I'm absolutely certain that it was banned from network television because of the gore and the gruesomeness of the subject matter. But America was far less polarized during the Clinton years then it is today. And the show makes it very clear that Taylor and the Peacocks have coexisted for years because they've never threatened each other. It's only when Mulder and Scully, the interlopers from the federal government come to town, that the two end up destroying each other.   You really don't have to go that far to go from Mulder and Scully commenting so dismissively about the Peacock family even as they see the violence they do when they lash out to say, Hilary, referring to rural America as a 'basket of deplorables'.

What leads to the darker irony is that when we reach the end of the episode is that Mulder and Scully were essentially called in under false pretenses. The Peacocks were guilty of no real crime before Taylor called in the bureau and Mulder and Scully's assumptions about who the mother of the child were are completely, and horribly, wrong. By the time they realize the most sickening truth about the episode, the Sheriff and his wife are dead, Deputy Pastor has been killed by a booby trap and the agents are forced to kill two of the brothers in self-defense. Perhaps that's the reason so much of the banter by the agents, often a highlight, strikes viewers as tonally off. Mulder and Scully realize that much of this mess is because of them and watching Scully and Mulder make jokes about Babe while trying to force the sheep out of the Peacock's fold really seems out of place.

Or perhaps there's more to it than just that. When we first see Mulder he actually seems distracted from work and seems oddly nostalgic about his childhood.  We've never once heard Mulder actually thinking of settling down before; his character has tunnel vision about everything. But the fact that during the first act he genuinely seems to be considering it shows that even he has had visions of a life beyond the job once.

This is reflected more directly when Scully, in the aftermath of the horrific autopsy done in the bathroom sink in the sheriff's office, begins reflecting on motherhood for the first time in the series. It's worth remembering Morgan and Wong were also gifted at being the first writers to deal with Scully's family life in the classic episodes Beyond The Sea and One Breath and they showed us an image of Fox and Samantha in a flashback in Little Green Men. The other scripts they'll write in Season 4 well pull back to curtain more directly on the longings of the regulars pasts so it's clear that's more of what's in play here then any foreshadowing of future storylines.

Morgan and Wong didn't just title the episode Home for the sight gag of the credits when we learned where the show was taking place: this is very much a story of defining what 'home' is for different people. And the show never gives a clear answer. As Monster of the Week makes clear in its review of the episode:

Is 'home' what the Peacocks inhabit in their insular, closed off world? Or is it the quiet, pleasant life of the Taylors, all cozy porches and silent moments together? Does it mean what Mulder and Scully share, a life spent endlessly on the road, building a home in each new city?"

There are no doubt people who would argue for one version or the other (though probably not to the grotesqueries the Peacocks take it to) and quite a few who would answer 'none of the above'.

They also write:

"Mulder and Scully are our heroes, but they also represent the world that threatens to homogenize all this weirdness…The old ways of life are dying, as high speed electrical cables smooth out our differences, one connection at a time."

The writers almost seem nostalgic for a simpler time when 'you had to be road-tripping through the Texas wilderness to run across a family of chainsaw-wielding freaks. Now Mulder and Scully could pop in and out of a small town to hang out with an inbred sideshow in just a few days' time."

To which I have to say: I actually would feel safer if the family of freaks stayed in their section of America, thank you very much. Indeed anyone who watches the sequence where the Peacocks go on a family road trip to murder the Taylors, all to the tune of 'Wonderful, Wonderful," would no doubt really wish the Peacocks just had board game nights like other families.

Shearman argues that this particular sequence may be the most tense in the entire series and he's not far off. Watching it play out is one of the most frightening single sequences and I sometimes wonder if David Fincher and M. Night Shyamalan – both of whom were in the early stages of their careers in 1996 –  were fans of the show and used this particular sequence as a model for much of their work in their careers. Full credit must also be given to director Kim Manners, who was gifted at playing the audience like the piano as anyone else among the directors on the show and the incredible cinematography of John Bartley, who may never have use the lack of lighting to more power during his tenure then here.

Shearman actually makes the argument that Morgan & Wong were making a subtle critique against The X-Files itself. He argues that the writers are 'objecting to the format of a show which has our FBI agents witness atrocities on a weekly basis only to bounce back ready for the next case. You could be tempted to say…that to be fair, it's not such a crime for a show to be escapist fun – but as an invective against complacency their point still stands."

In this Shearman, as he frequently does throughout his book, reads far too much into the writer's motivations. I suspect if they heard these words Morgan & Wong would be stunned by it. In fact in an interview for Monster of The Week Wong tells the authors that they were stunned by just how upset Standards & Practices were; saying "I thought we had done worse stuff before." He describes showing the teaser to one such executives and its clear they were trying to assuage them on it not that being that made and the employee watched in shock. They weren't helped because Kim Manners was watching it and his reaction was: "That was fucking great!"

And just to drive the point home that all Morgan and Wong were trying to do was write a scary TV show he tells us that when they went to Millennium the following year they actually pitched the idea of the Peacock family having an encounter with Frank Black. (And honestly given the nature of Millennium they would have fit right in.) But when they pitched to the head of Fox at the time he told them: "Never. The Peacocks are never going to be on the air again." Then he added "The reason we have the V-Chip is because of your show!"

Which…honestly could have been possible. By 1996 television was about to be forced to give broadcast ratings for its programs. Network TV was going to be struggling for TV-PG and TV-14 but every time I watch 'Home' I can't help but think that this if you were to air it on cable you might still not be comfortable giving it a TV-MA. And it's not even because of the violence or the gore or even the horrible deformities that we see not just every Peacock living family member having but are clearly on display in the photo gallery that's in the home.

No it's because of the fact that Mrs. Peacock, played in one of the most unsettling guest appearances by Karin Konoval, is not a victim of the Peacock's inbreeding but a willing participant. We learn that Edmund is the brother and the father of the other two boys and she is perfectly fine with what they are doing. The way she tells Scully "They're such good boys" and tells Scully "Maybe one day you'll have the pride when you know your boy will do anything for his mother" is a term that I believe would shock a generation used to this kind of thing happening regularly in Westeros.

Indeed I'd argue the Game of Thrones comparison is a valid one. House Peacock (ha ha) doesn't want power or territory but when they are threatened they are far more dangerous and lethal with their weapons then anything we see with the swords and dragons on HBO. They are willing to kill to protect what's there and you can argue there's the same twisted love here that you see in the House Lanister but without the fantasy element the viewer sees just how ugly and brutal it truly is. The Peacock's even have a very superhuman type power; none of them can feel pain in the traditional sense. ("It runs in the family," Mama brags to Scully.) And as a result when we see the Peacock's brutally bludgeon the Sheriff and his wife to death or see them fall upon Deputy Pastor once he's been decapitated by one of their traps,  I defy even the viewer raised on the Saw franchise not to be a little revolted. One doesn't so much enjoy 'Home' as one experiences it and you might not want to experience it that often.

But there's a time and place for everything and since we're nearing Halloween now's as good a time as any to track it down. It's still available on Hulu as we speak and those of you who still have your DVDs and VHS's (like yours truly) can watch it. However, a word of caution. Though they used a Johnny Mathis impersonator for 'Wonderful, Wonderful', I can assure you that you'll never be able to hear the original ever again without wondering whether the Peacocks are still traveling the highway of America, looking to rebuild their family. Maybe they've found a rental in Texas to settle down in by now – though I suspect everybody gives these neighbors their space.

 

Homicide Rewatch: Abduction

 

Written by Julie Martin and Anya Epstein

Directed by Kenneth Fink

 

In a sense this episode seems like it belongs in a different series altogether: it's closer to the kind of story Law & Order told in its early years or shows like Without A Trace would specialize in within a few years of Homicide's ending. But even in a season where the writers have been testing the boundaries of what the show was capable of 'Abduction' is remarkable.

It's a red ball, to be sure; but it's also the first time we've seen the squad dispatched this quickly to a single crime scene since 'Prison Riot' last season. (That was the last time we heard Giardello say: "Everybody goes" and this time he doesn't modify it for Frank.) It was mentioned almost in passing by Kellerman that homicide detectives deal with potential kidnappings but the series has never come close to deal with any crime that didn't involve a dead body on the scene. Indeed the detectives are doing something we've never seen on the show before and will only see one or two times in the future: they're trying to be proactive and stop a homicide from occurring.

It's a simple story by the standards of the show: there's a single investigation, we see how it begins and we carry through it all the way to the end. This comes as a contrast to Mercy, which dealt with separate stories for every regular; now we're seeing them all work as a unit. And it's the rarest of things for Homicide; it's a story with a happy ending, where the detectives can go to the Waterfront after a hard day's work and can say that they did more good then just lock up a killer.

The episode has a typically cinematic opening with a mother named Amy Marshall  deciding to put her four year old son on a carousel and debating whether to let him ride by himself. She talks with another mother about how hard it is to let it go, she looks down to try and find her camera and by the time she looks up her son is gone. She runs through the carousel and on the other side is her son's cap.

The episode begins with squabbling over desks: Frank and Ballard are still sharing after six months and Giardello finally moves her to the desk across from Gharty. Then Falsone gets the call from the kidnapping at the Inner Harbor.

They've searched and they haven't found here. They have a witness but it’s a five year girl who was behind him and Bayliss and Pembleton have no idea how to question a five year old. (Who would?) Falsone and Stivers (who are the primaries) start asking questions about day care and nursery school, babysitters and the ex-husband. Understandably this case hits home for Paul more personally then others and he's willing to justify more manpower for an extended search.

The first meeting reveals that they don't have much, all of the parents were watching their own kids and it was highly unlikely given their jobs that this could be about ransom. There's also the possibility that because the father has only partial custody and they can't reach him, that he could be involved.

This is the inevitable next step, particularly when it becomes clear that the Marshalls couldn't get long any better as shared custody of parents as they could married. When David shows up at the house around the police Falsone goes to him – and given what he just went through the last few months we know why he'd go this far – but it's clear very quickly that his alibi checks out. The next step is go to on the news. Immediately after Barnfather and Gaffney show their faces and it's clear that they're more upset about the publicity aspect then the actual missing child. This is Falsone's first exposure to pressure from the bosses. Stivers experience with sex crimes helps as both can state the alternatives: either this was a woman who wanted her own child, in which case he'll be fine for a while or it’s a pedophile in which case they have 24 hours – "or we'll be looking for a body." For once the blunt talk and perhaps the nature of the crime actually silences the bosses; they just walk away stoically.

Bayliss and Pembleton's conversations with nursery school offer a few grim laughs as the teacher assures them that she could pay perfect attention if someone suspicious showed up, while two three year olds begin fighting behind her. But we also get grimness from when Kellerman and Munch are talking with the Marshal's neighbor and he talks about seeing faces on milk cartons. "Every time I toss out that carton I wonder if that kid got back alive," he says. (Sadly even though the milk cartons aren't used any more we still wonder.)

Falsone follows the guideline. He tells the father to talk to the abductor, the mother to talk directly to her son. It's now I should mention that Amy is played by Elizabeth Marvel in what  was her official television debut (See Hey Isn't That…) In the scene where she delivers her plea to her son and assures her she'll be okay, you can see how she her trying desperately to hold it together. Marvel was about to become of the most exceptional character actors in 21^st century TV, most of her work for playing women with a backbone of steel so its stunning to see her play someone on the verge of breaking someone who keeps making her plea and has to be pulled away gently by her husband after they go to commercial.

Immediately afterwards Falsone and Stivers get a report on a sex offender who moved into a house just a few blocks away from the Marshals a few weeks ago. The scene that follows is excruciating as they the detectives try to solicit information from a man who has a history of abusing such children and they try to hold in their disgust. Then when the man sees the picture and begins to all but fondle it while saying: "He likes the swings." Falsone actually exercises remarkable restraint when he just grabs Ramey and Stivers has no more patience when she tells him about how his walls were found covered with pictures. The scene where Falsone tells him that there are going to be uniforms at his house until they find Sean is remarkable – you can tell he wants to take a swing at him but he manages to hold his rage in. The only emotion he shows is when he sees Ramey holding the photo – and then he walks back and snatches it away from him. It's only when he outside the box  and he learns that they're going to have to let him go that he reacts with anger – but not where you think.

What has been suggested indirectly is made direct when he goes to Janine's house and practically begs his wife to stay home from work rather than send his son to day care. For once we see the concerned parent in Paul and its striking to see how things have changed when Janine doesn't really put up a fight.

Around that time things take an unlikely turn as Jeff Andrews shows up. Jeff Andrews is very clearly modeled after John Walsh and America's Most Wanted (he's even dressed the jacket and shirt combo Walsh used during his broadcast) as well as the same backstory. Falsone has no use for him even given his success rate but Al makes it clear that they can't afford to lose the help.

Just then they get a call from someone demanding ransom. He seems to know all he can about their son. But it turns out he's just a wannabe who just wants to be on television. What's more interesting is the discussion Falsone has with David Marshall during this period. David begins to panic and needs to get air and goes out into the cameras. He starts talking about despite his expenses he's got maybe $600 in the bank. Falsone actually jokes: "That's about what I got." When he says he's never done another thing to hurt another human being, Paul turns serious: "I don't think it works that way." More interestingly when QRT comes to the house to get there with all guns raised Giardello says its his call "but think of the child." Jaspers then immediately lowers the weapons.

The next day Bayliss tells Frank that in some way he'd rather be working a murder, that it's easier to deal with this rather then thinking about a child being tortured, at least that way the victims at peace. Bayliss admits he wants to be a father some day and have kids. Frank immediately jumps on this as if he's thinking of ending his experimental phase and the eagerness in this is rather telling.

Just as telling is Al's energy is less about rage but more about concern. When his detectives tell them about the complete lack of progress and that they need to start over you can here a quiver in Giardello's voice we almost never do: "The next time I see Sean Marshall's face, I want to see him in his mother's arms," is delivered with the energy of a parent, not a commander.

Not long after a series of reinterviews of everyone on the merry-go-round they find a five year old who actually remembers Sean, the horse he was on and when he got off. But when Falsone and Stivers try to question her, they hit a stone wall with a child who can only focus on purple. At that moment Andrews suggests a hypnotists who's done some work for them, local departments and the FBI. Falsone all but explodes into mockery: "Why don't we just turn this case into a circus?"  Giardello then tells them how fifteen years ago they had a serial killer with a living victim and with hypnosis they remembered enough details to catch the man.

Under hypnosis the girl remembers a dark blue car with the license plate beginning TXQ. Falsone is upset about this but at least they have a place to start. When Andrews starts to air the program Falsone starts shouting at him: "What the hell do you know about police work?" Andrews just says: "I know you're under a lot of pressure, detective." Then Stivers tells him that Andrews' daughter was abducted ten years ago and was never found. Falsone deflates like a balloon.

Ballard and Gharty then knock on the door of Bailey Reynolds, whose just left the house with suitcases and 'her new son' according to the neighbor, to see her family in Montreal. They split up, airport, bus station, and train station. When Andrews says he wants to be there when they find Sean, a more polite Falsone says: "Don't you mean if they find them?" but otherwise he's polite. It's only when he's forced to stay as the primary monitoring the investigation we see just how much this has worn him down. He's also thinking like a father more than a detective. Not longer after state police find Reynolds and while she's clearly deranged she doesn't even have a weapon and when confronted with police released Sean to his parents.

Reynolds is clearly delusional: she's been watching 'Matt' basically his whole life from the merry-go-round, who watched the Marshalls fight from a distance. She truly believes she was a better mother for him because it was so easy to take him. Falsone doesn't know if she's competent to stand trial but for once he cares less about but punishment as long as she's off the street. Sean is scared and confused but Stivers thinks he'll recover.   Andrews gives him a tape and Falsone is puzzled why he's still going to air the sequence. "Sometimes we want to do happy endings," Falsone is honest saying that his job doesn't give him much room for happy endings.

For the first time in a long time we have a conversation between two women from the squad as Ballard and Stivers discuss whether they'd ever want to have a baby. I don't know if the Bechdel test existed in 1998 but this is an interesting variation as Stivers makes it clear she never wanted children and the two of them talking about 'the ticking clock'. And considering how rarely Homicide discusses gender issues specifically (it was always more ahead of the curve on race) it's actually welcome as Ballard admits she would have wanted a good man and a baby. Stivers says she would be open to marriage or a baby but only if they came along: she doesn't actively crave it. Ballard actually calls her lucky for not having unfulfilled desires and Stivers admits she doesn't know about that. It's a fascinating insight to two women who are working in a male dominated profession and have been fighting for it among their peers every day and it's not the kind of thing we were used to when Melissa Leo was the only woman on the squad.

The episode ends as you might expect: Falsone visits Janine and tells her that even though Daniel's asleep he just wants to see him for a second. He wakes his son just to tell him he loves him. And we see how this played out on videotape as Andrews tells them how it played out, and he says it’s a chance to believe in love and luck 'and the hard work of the men and women of our nation's police forces." And honestly given everything that's already happened to the squad this season – and spoiler alert, there are even worse things to come before it's over – can you blame the show for wanting to give us a happy ending for once?

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

It's worth remembering that this episode aired in 1998, just two years after the Amber Alert was officially coined in 1996. I don't think it's a coincidence the witness who breaks the kidnapping is a girl named Amber.

Mahoney PTSD: Just a brief tussling over Kellerman demanding that Stivers be moved from Lewis's desk. "Thanks for caring," Stivers says. Giardello tells her to stay where she is.

Bonaventura and Johnson, who are referred to a couple of times in this episode and seen on the screen were two members of Homicide: Second Shift; the online spinoff of the series that aired on the internet during the final three seasons of the show. There was actually a crossover segment done immediately afterward but it's not canon and you probably couldn't find it.

It was the '90s: When Al Giardello says "At this stage in the game I'd take help from the woman on Profiler he's referring to the 1990s NBC Saturday night drama of the same name which featured Ally Walker in the title role. A prototype of later 2000s FBI type shows such as Criminal Minds, the show deal with a team that was tracking serial killers, particularly one known as Jack of All Trades, who had killed Walker's husband and had been stalking her for years before. The series ran from 1996-2000 before it as well as almost all programming running on Saturday nights was cancelled. The show was released on DVD but was never released on streaming despite featuring a super cast including Robert Davi, Roma Maffia, Julian McMahon and Dennis Christopher in the unbilled voice over of Jack.

"Detective Munch'  No jokes. He and Kellerman actually find the one child who noticed Sean get off the carousel.

Hey, Isn't That…Elizabeth Marvel was making her television debut in this episode. Two years later she would get a badge of her own as Nancy Parras in the CBS drama The District in which she appeared in all four seasons before the show was cancelled in 2004. One of the most reliable character actresses in TV, she's appeared in Law & Order and all its spin-offs and played Rita Calhoun a defense attorney on SVU since 2010.

She has had roles in Nurse Jackie, The Newsroom, White Collar and played Alicia Corwin across three seasons of Person of Interest. She played Constance Heck in Season 2 of Fargo. But she is best known for her work in two very different DC set shows: Heather Dunbar, a legislative council who becomes Frank Underwood's rival for the Presidency during Season 3 and 4 of House of Cards and President Elizabeth Keene, the controversial head of state in Seasons 6 and 7 of Homeland. She has also starred in multiple Emmy nominated and award winning limited series, including Unbelievable, Love and Death, The Dropout, Mrs. Davis and Presumed Innocent. She is married to the equally talented character actor Bill Camp and the two of them have appeared in many films and TV shows together, in fact she played the wife of his character Brian Horgan in Presumed Innocent! She is scheduled to appear in the upcoming season of The Gilded Age.

Robert John Burke was already an established character actor in such films as Rambling Rose and had played Robocop in the third film of the franchise. This was actually one of the first TV shows he'd done in a while. Later that year he would appear as Bill Anders in the Emmy winning miniseries From The Earth to the Moon and would play Frank Drummond in the HBO TV movie A Bright Shining Lie. Fontana would cast him as Special Agent Taylor, the man determined to make Chris Keller face justice for a series of gay killings in OZ over four seasons.

He has a fairly successful TV career mostly playing law enforcement officers on shows such as Law and Order, CSI Miami, and The Sopranos. He also played future White House administrator James Mattis in Generation Kill, and played Mickey Gavin across almost the entire run of Denis's Leary Rescue Me. He had the recurring role of Bart Bass on Gossip Girl; General Clarke on the Lifetime Series Army Wives, Patrick Simmons (part of HR) on Person of Interest, William Fairchild on the one season history channel series Project Blue Book and Ed Tucker across nearly 18 years of Law and Order SVU. Fans of The Last Of Us will remember him as Seth, who Joel punched out  at New Year's in Season 2.

I Could Have Seen What Was Coming For Mamdani From the Holland Tunnel. Now Let's Tell You What We Should Take Away

 

The only thing that truly surprises me about what happened to New York City's beloved mayor (and when I say beloved I mean by the far left across the country) is that it took this long for it to happen.

As I wrote in an article on Mayor Mamdani last month nearly eight months into his first term the majority of his campaign promises are either stalled or have been put on the backburner. It's actually been getting worse for him in the last month. His proposed second home tax was struck down by a Staten Island court. The New York City Council has been making pointed inquiries into the paid influencers that make up so much of his campaign. And when Netanyahu attended the UN conference a couple of weeks ago and numerous pro-Palestine protestors were arrested by the police Mamdani was busy having a meeting with a diplomat from the Netherlands involving climate change in Gracie Mansion.

Mamdani has been all talk and no action when it comes to all of the policies he's won the mayor's race on last November. And since the overwhelming majority of his talk has made it very clear what side he was on in regard to Israel, he's spent much of the last several months increasingly taking flak from the Jewish voters in New York. The fact that he chose to show up at an October 7^th anniversary vigil wasn't going to earn him any points from that group but considering he's spent so much time actively isolating them he was no doubt doing so to throw them a bone – one they absolutely weren't going to take.

With all that said, it clearly came as a shock to him when the inevitable pro-Palestinian protest came to that vigil and specifically called him the worst names imaginable. Mamdani has been known for his trademark cheerful attitude in the face of anything but there's footage that is now available in the Times showing him looking stone-faced and even ashen as he leaves the vigil. At this point Mamdani is clearly wondering what he did to deserve this.

Well the answer he is he ran for public office. The one thing that remains a constant among the activist left is that they truly believe that the problems of today can't be solved by politicians. Many members of the DSA may have considered him their hero but it was always going to have a shelf life the moment Mamdani's campaign promises ran into the reality of governing.

And the DSA truly believes government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem. (Yes I did quote Reagan, what's your point?) The left has spent the 21^st century insisting to anyone who will listen (and even those who don't) that no one in government has the interests of the people – by which of course I mean the left – at heart. They have blamed the special interests, the one percent, Citizens United and in many cases the voters themselves for not fully putting into action a progressive, socialist government.  Which they obviously could do but only don't because they want to own the libs.

All of this yelling and screaming has always been to disguises that the Justice Democrats and DSA candidates are staggeringly unpopular with the electorate at large. This hasn't changed despite everything Trump has done to destabilize the government and it continued to play out during the 2026 election cycle. The Justice Democrats ran fourteen candidates for Congress: seven won and six lost. The DSA ran 27 candidates in primaries: 8 won, 19 lost. They've had some successes in the Senate – Abdul El-Sayid in Michigan, Angie Nixon in Florida – but Graham Platner spectacularly flamed out and while Troy Jackson is running even with Susan Collins in Maine, it doesn't take away from the disaster. And Francesca Hong, running as a socialist in Wisconsin's gubernatorial primary, was defeated by David Crowley for the nomination.

Despite the Republicans protracted effort to label all Democrats as just versions of Mamdani and the most extreme versions of them, this cycle has been dominated by  moderates at every level. At this point the Democrats are likely to win control of both the House and the Senate as well as a majority of the governors' race this fall. And the overwhelming majority of these candidates are moderates and centrists, things that those devoted to Mamdani hate with a passion. The only victories the Justice Democrats and DSA candidates were able to win this cycle were deep blue districts where the left-wing message was the strongest. Angie Nixon has little chance of winning in Florida and by and large left-wing candidates have failed to win primaries for other statewide races. The ones who might win, such as Annie Andrews in South Carolina, may win just because of outside factors that have little to do with them. And by and large the candidates who are likely to win Senate seats this cycle, such as James Talarico and Roy Cooper, along with outside possibilities such as Dan Osborn in Nebraska and Adam Hamilton in Kansas, will win by rejecting the traditional left-wing calls and running to the center where most voters are.

There are many long time Democrats who have become dissatisfied with the party in large part because of the loudest and most left-wing voices running this cycle as well as Mamdani and the Squad. But they've never been anywhere close to the majority of the Democratic Party and they won't be even after this cycle. At most they will be under double digits in the DSA and at most a dozen in the Justice Democrats. They get all the attention for the same reason that everyone in the Freedom Caucus does. They're by far the squeakiest wheels and no amount of grease will quiet them. That doesn't mean they represent the entire party by a long shot.

The reason I'm mentioning Mamdani is because the fact that his own circle have turned on him – less than a year after he won the mayorship – should be the biggest flashing warning light possible to candidates such as Clare Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York, Melat Kiros in Colorado and Adam Hamawy in New Jersey and Abdul El-Sayid in Michigan. It took the very people that helped you win your primaries nine months to turn on the elected official that you've been holding up as your template ever since you ran for office.

The moment you win office; you're on a clock. Everything that you've been saying about the John Fetterman's in Congress they will be saying about you the moment you don't deliver on your campaign promises.  The second you vote for something that doesn't completely meld with anything that they agree with (and who knows what it'll be in 2027) they will start protesting you and saying nasty things online and calling you traitors and sell-outs. They think what you say on the campaign trail is carved in stone and that you will deliver it the day before you are sworn into Congress, if not sooner. They don't want to know how Congress really works; they don't want to be told about checks and balances or the realities of governing.  They turned on Bernie the moment he started working with the Biden administration and the DSA is very split on whether AOC should run for President or be primaried. And the fact that Trump is still in the White House is only going to give you two years at most of cover. Then many of you will have to run for reelection. Good luck trying to win the anarchist vote.

Now if my fellow establishment Democrats and moderates can get away from the understandable schadenfreude you are feeling seeing Mamdani beginning to reap what he sows, you can take comfort in the fact that you've been right all along about how impossible it is to please the far left. And I would suggest using this as a cudgel as much as possible when the new Congress convenes and hopefully you have the majority you so richly deserve. But you have to take certain lessons to into account.

First for those of you who have chosen to recognize AOC and her ilk less as elected representatives but 'influencers who create content' (as a recent Times article has quoted Sean Maloney) you are of course correct. And it's important to realize that AOC is a model of every one who she has galvanized to vote for her. Like her, they have no understanding of how government is supposed to work and even if they bothered to take a civics lesson it would make a difference.

You see the young have always believed that government should work as simply as pressing a button. And having been raised on their cell phones they are completely incapable of understanding how the world works. If you can order anything you want online, get rides, order food, find sexual encounters and even make commentary derided the internet and social media all without taking their hands off their phone, then in their minds it should be just as simple to pass a law, amend the constitution or impeach the president simply by making a post on TikTok.  That is in fact exactly how Mamdani tried to govern and as has been illustrated that won't work with a generation that was so deluded half of them believed Mamdani could make a citizen's arrest of Netanyahu in New York and the other half are angry when he confirmed he couldn't.

For the last decade the Democratic Party has acted entirely in reaction to Trump, either by trying to mirror the worst parts of the Republican party or by trying to win over the left flank from the Sanders wing. They have mirrored bad behavior with bad behavior, disruption with disruption, chaos with chaos. This is done either to try and win the Trump voter back with similar behavior or the far left who both loathe everything he does and simultaneously want the same version to create a perfect progressive utopia.

The talking heads will say that our government, established 250 years ago, is not equipped to deal with the problems of 21^st century America. If the definition is it can't adapt with the 24 hour news cycle or those who believe everything should move at the speed of Instagram, you're correct. But considering that this is a pace that no human being can hope to live at, maybe stop trying to consider that a vice. To those who will argue about the horrible approval numbers of Congress in polling, one of the better points of democracy was that it was built on compromise and patience and the utilitarian model of doing the most good for the most people. The preamble begins 'in order to build a more perfect union'.  Those young people who think all democracy should be perfect by design clearly haven't read it.

Not even the darlings of the far left can satisfy the empty void that is the average progressive. So since we can't hope to beat them at their own game, let's stop playing their game. And let's not play the right's game either which means when Trump says frog, they jump. We're supposed to be the grownups and that means stop giving into the demands of children, whether they are among the Freedom Caucus or the Progressive Caucus.

When the New Congress is sworn in if it goes according to trends both Schumer and Jeffries need to lay down the law to their majorities and make it very clear who's in charge. They want to grandstand and do their little dances in front of the cameras, fine. But when its time to vote for anything they shut their mouths and do what they were elected to do.  Tell them that a 'no' vote counts against the party whether they do it or the Republicans do it. Some of them clearly didn't get that message during Biden's term so try to do it using flash cards if that point doesn't register. If they act up maybe walk them over to the Freedom Caucus or John Thune and say: "You want to sit with them instead?"

And every time they start acting like they speak for the people, find the clip of Mamdani being booed online. Tell them: "Those are your people. Now how about speaking for all the others? Last I checked they made their opinions pretty clear this year." Remind him of the difference between what he promised and what he delivered. Most of all, remind him even he was willing to meet with the President for the greater good. That won't shut them up for long but you might be able to get things done in the meantime and some of it might even help the far left, even if they'll never appreciate it.

 

For the Next Tournament of Champions Jeopardy Is Going Old School

 

In the first five full seasons of the post-Trebek era on Jeopardy I've seen a lot of changes on how the show does things. I haven't been against every damn one of them but I've against a lot of them. Yet over the last year or so I'm become resigned to the possibility that this was the way things were.

So imagine my astonishment – and delight – to know that for the next Tournament of Champions Jeopardy is getting back to its roots. After every Tournament of Champions has tried to shift the format to its most elastic this year we are going back to basics.

The official eligibility period for the 2027 Tournament of Champions ended at the conclusion of the 2025-2026 season. For the first decade of Jeopardy that was the standard, then it became more elastic overtime and it may end up shifting again. What is different is that for the first time since the 2021 Tournament of Champions Jeopardy is going back to the format that millions of fans like myself loved and rejoiced in.

There were certainly hints of it during the 2025-2026 season, in both Champions Wild Card and a variation of it in the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament that year. But I'll be honest, I really thought it was a bone that was being tossed to traditionalists and not something the show would ever go back to. I've never been so grateful to be proven wrong.

Whenever the next Tournament of Champions takes place it will follow the format that all Tournaments during the Alex Trebek era following: fifteen participants facing off in five quarterfinal matches with the five winners advancing along with four wild card spots for the high scorers among non-winners. We will then have the three semi-final matches that will lead to three winners and then – well, honestly I don't know about that part yet.

 But whatever method they choose whether it's a two game total point affair or they go back to the first to three winning the tournament, I don't think I care. Because ever since the Second Chance and Champions Wild Card tournaments were established, despite the admitted talent of such players as Juveria Zaheer and Long Nguyen (both of whom more than proved themselves in the last Jeopardy Masters) the bad has outweighed the good. Endless postseason aside, it has done much to diminish the overall effect of the Tournament of Champions as being about the best of the best, even if in none of them have any of the winners even made it as far as the finals. Last year the show did much to limit their presence and it is likely that will continue in the postseason this January.

There's the also the fact by expanding the roster at all and adding the byes they were limiting the ability of many of the best players to advance. That much can't be blamed on the format – the one thing you can predict about a Jeopardy Tournament is that you absolutely can't predict who'll win – but it definitely was a factor.

Now in what seems to have been a moment of clarity for the producers they have restored order to a system that many fans, even at its best, felt was chaotic. And they may have actually redeemed themselves in the minds of many, certainly myself by listening to us.

And even those who might complain about going backwards will be hard pressed to be annoyed considering just how many incredible Jeopardy players are here. Because this has been a season of super-champions and some of the best Jeopardy players in history.

So Jeopardy fans with authority here is your official roster for the 2026 TOC – at least so far:

Jamie Ding, 31 wins, $885,605

Harrison Whitaker, 14 wins, $374,999

Caleb Groen, 12 wins, $346,968

Adam Remsen, 12 wins, $306,415

Tristan Williams, 10 wins, $222,902

Chris D'Angelo, 8 wins, $194,201

Peter McFerrin, 6 wins, $147,399

James Denison, 4 wins, $99,400

Will Riley, 4 wins, $80,403

Greg Shahade, 3 wins, $74,602

James Hirsh, 3 wins, $67,418

Ron Lalonde, 3 wins, $53,501

Mina Kimes, Celebrity Jeopardy All-Stars Winner

And apparently Jeopardy made a mistake in last year's Champions Wild Card. Late in Double Jeopardy Stella Trout bet everything on the last Daily Double. Her response was ruled incorrect. However the producers realized within one day of the game ended that Stella's response should have ruled correct.

Had that happened she would have gone into Final Jeopardy having locked up the Wild Card Tournament and would have gone into the 2026 Tournament of Champions.

So in a mea culpa of epic proportions Stella is getting yet another Second Chance and has been invited to participate in the 2027 Tournament of Champions. Honestly given just how well she played in Champions Wild Card all the way through hard to pretend she hasn't earned it.

The last spot will be determined in the same fashion it was back in Season 42 postseason with the Second Chance Tournaments and the winners going to compete in Champions Wild Card for that final spot. Once I know the official roster so will you.

This was already going to be a thrilling Tournament even before the eligibility requirements were set up. For the first time we will have a roster of super-champions competing in an Alex Trebek style Jeopardy format. This will lead to a greater level of strategy then the post-Trebek style tournaments which have basically been win or go home for every quarterfinal match. We haven't seen this play out since the 2021 Tournament of Champions and it'll be interesting to see how all the players handle it.

There's also the storylines involving so many of the participants. Tristan was defeated by Chris and Chris was defeated by Peter. Greg famously defeated Jamie Ding so there's the possibility of James Holzhauer-Emma Boettcher type narrative if they face off.

Then there are the personal narratives. Chris D'Angelo revealed that his efforts to get on Jeopardy were the source for the Emmy winning TV movie Quiz Lady which means if this goes a certain way we may see a fictional version of this tournament streaming on TV. Ron LaLonde is Ray LaLonde's identical twin brother and Ray LaLonde was a super-champion who failed to advance past the quarterfinals. So Ron might be trying to avenge the family honor.

And of course Jamie Ding's incredible performance in which he became the fifth best player in Jeopardy history both in games and money won in his original run has already become one of those players whose fame has transcended Jeopardy. Just this past summer he appeared on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire with Ben Affleck and has already made quite a few pop culture lists before.

But as Jeopardy fans know being a super-champions means squat in the Tournament of Champions. Ryan Long and Jonathan Fisher famously couldn't get past their quarterfinals and Mattea Roach was flattened in her semi-final against Andrew He. And in addition to Ray LaLonde, Cris Panullo who himself was ranked fifth in money won in his original appearance couldn't was trounced in a runaway victory in the 2024 Tournament of Champions by Jared Watson.

Whenever the 2027 Tournament of Champions happens (the eta is either January or February) it will be of epic performance. New breed super-champions in an old school format.

It also means (heh heh) that Matthew Riggle will have a longer wait for his appearance to the Alex Trebek stage. So I'm going to wait until the end of October to give my first official report on whose going to be appearing on Jeopardy in the 2028 Tournament of Champions. There have been some developments there but I'll save that for later.

Back to the Island: Lost Character Study - Introduction: Why When It Came to TV During Its Run The Rules Never Applied to Lost

 

Author's Note: For the purpose of this articles and the ones that will follow in this particular series I will be doing comparisons only with series whose runs overlapped with  Lost's original run between September of 2004 and May of 2010.

I was as big of fan of the TV shows in the first decade of the 21^st century as any critic and indeed millions of other viewers both then and now

I might have issues with how The Sopranos played out but I devoured the first four seasons at least. I spent years loving The Wire and while I came late to it Deadwood ranks as my favorite among the first crop of HBO masterpieces. I devoured the final seasons of The Shield; I was at Dexter from his first kill, and I watched the masterclasses that were Mad Men and Breaking Bad though I came a little late to the latter masterpiece.

I should mention there are also many series from this period I've rewatched multiple times. Not just Deadwood and The Wire but also 24 and Battlestar Galactica. And I think Damages is just as good as any of the series that debuted during this period. So the question is why, of all of these masterclasses in great television, do I rewatch Lost like clockwork every two to three years?

I think a lot of it has to do with what was fundamentally different about Lost then almost all the other shows I've mentioned. In all of these shows we were spending week in and week out rooting for villains.

Now to be clear, in some of these shows like The Wire and Deadwood, there were more than a few genuinely good characters along with the bad ones and 24 managed to have a clear action hero among the political drama. But I think we're well past the point where we as critics have to admit the term 'antihero' was a way to justify that week in and week out, we were watching a horrible white man do horrible things to other people and most of the time it involved brutal violence.

Let's not kid ourselves any more. Tony Soprano and Vic Mackey and Walter White were killers and drug dealers who committed violent atrocities  on a weekly basis and would regularly lie to their wives and children about what they did. Don Draper cheated on both his wives weekly, was an absent father to his children, and was a terrible boss. And Dexter Morgan was a serial killer who even by the time of Season 4 (which is where my cutoff is for these articles) had let an innocent man take the wrap for his killing, was lying to his sister and his colleagues, and whose wife did get killed because of his inaction.

I will confess to being as guilty of it as anybody. I never for a moment engaged in the kind of toxic masculinity where I considered women such as Carmela Soprano and Skyler White the real monsters because they committed the unspeakable crime of being wet blankets. (I need that to be clear.) But I thrilled in watching the horrible actions of these, ahem 'white male antiheroes' as much as anyone else. Much of it was due to the incredible writing, directing and acting that filled all of these series to be sure and I probably did the same compartmentalizing as every other viewer and critic did during this period. And I'm not saying that these dramas suffer by comparison in hindsight; they're still as great now as they were then.

But at a certain point for all of the leads of these shows, even the leads themselves often admitted they were beyond redemption and they'd never really been anything other then monsters. Some like Dexter Morgan knew it from the start, for some such as Walter White they only acknowledged it after everything was over and some like Tony Soprano figured they couldn't change. It doesn't make many of these series anything less than masterpieces (and indeed a recent New York Times piece has named many of these shows among the best of 21^st century so far) but it is something then even their creators have acknowledged were flaws.

And I think that's part of the reason I do keep coming back to Lost like clockwork in a way I just don't with any of the shows above. (Out of the 100 shows they listed Lost ranked 18^th for the record.)

During my most recent rewatch of Lost I worked on what was a rough draft of episode recaps in which I included some of my thoughts after nearly 20 years. When I got to the final season, my analysis was much on the subject here and I'll quote one of my more relevant points below:

In LA X ‘Locke’ dismissed everyone on the plane as ‘weak, pathetic and irrevocably broken’. We all know he was speaking from a place of contempt in that but there is one word that is accurate and that’s ‘broken’. Darlton referred repeatedly that all of the characters on the series were not just physically lost but emotionally so and no one will dispute that fact.

‘Broken’ could also be used to describe so many of the major characters in all of the other dramas that we met in the first decade of Peak TV. Tony Soprano was famously so, and you could say the same for everyone he associated with. Al Swearengen and most of the members of Deadwood were to a certain extent many in ways the characters on Lost could not handle. By the time Lost was getting nominated for Best Drama in its final three seasons we had been introduced to Don Draper, Walter White and Dexter Morgan all of whom it's safe to say had pieces missing. That said I think it's safe to say that in the entire run of Lost, the series never had a character anywhere near as morally bankrupt as these characters: the closest is Ben and he is anywhere near as villainous as any of the characters I’ve listed on a good day.

By comparison there isn’t a single character on Lost who even comes close to the definition of the antiheroes we were getting before, during and after the revolution. All of these characters are flawed but I would never have called any of them anywhere close to the level of monstrous that we were getting in Breaking Bad or The Sopranos.

This may be one of the reasons it has been easier for me to return to Lost multiple times over the years than many of the other shows I’ve mentioned. All of them are of high quality to be sure but the enjoyment we get of these shows is of a darker layer than Lost’s.

I should mention that in Back to the Island Emily St. James posits a prominent theory among TV critics that a series can be summed up by a single word. I disagree with her on that, in large part because I reject any idea of trying to simplify any great work of art in as few words as possible.

For that reason it's reductive to use a word such as 'broken' as a catch-all term for all the characters in Lost despite the truth of it because it’s a term that really could apply to almost every other protagonist I've mentioned in my writing. Indeed I suspect that may have been one of the justifications that many critics, both professional and online, used to justify rooting for all of these horrible men during this period. You could argue that Vic Mackey was doing what he had to do in a broken system; that Tony Soprano was broken because of who his mother was; that Dexter Morgan was a serial killer because he was broken as an infant.

All of this is true but it's as much a reason why the viewer condoned, if not outright justified all the horrible things they were doing. And it provided cover for any viewer who those viewers who were experiencing the vicarious thrills from watching them do increasingly violent and horrible things season after season.

That gets back to what Emily St. James argues is one of the overriding themes of Lost: redemption. That may be the biggest difference between Lost and all the other shows that were airing while it was in its original run and it was certainly vastly different from the dramas that would air in the decade to follow. All of the characters on Lost were broken and many of them thought at the beginning and indeed for much of their arcs on the series that they were beyond saving. But for the characters who managed to survive until the end of the series you could see with each season that they were trying to find a way to deserve a second chance. A lot of the time they were knocked back but they kept trying to find a way to move forward season after season.

Lindelof said that in addition to being physically Lost, all the characters were also emotionally lost. And that is a theme that Nikki Stafford came back to quite a bit during the final volume of her Finding Lost series. I'm not saying that isn't true of all the characters in the other series that I listed above (and in this series of articles I'll mention others of that era that have applications here) but the difference is that even before we first met the majority of them, they were convinced they were beyond saving and their actions in the series were all about them going further and further into the dark.

By contrast all of the characters on Lost were trying to find their way back to the light, and for all of them it meant different things in ways that were less clear cut then the journeys on shows like The Sopranos or Breaking Bad. At a certain level its easier to watch series like that repeatedly then watching brutality, bullying and killing. (To be clear there wasn't a shortage of that on Lost but the writers never drowned you in it the same way it did in those shows.)

Stafford also argued that none of the characters were black and white; they were all gray. The idea that no one on Lost is either fully good or fully bad is also a common theme in Back to the Island. And while that's true I'd argue with every single character on Lost they were trying to do the right thing rather then the wrong one. I suspect that's why the writers named so many of their characters after philosophers who were asking these very questions about the nature of man. You don't name your characters after Locke, Rousseau and Hume if you're trying to tell a story about villains. (Don't worry; I'm not going to send you back to your college textbooks for these articles.)

In the articles that will follow I intend to look at the journeys of the characters who made it all the way to the final season of Lost and who'd been on the series since the first or second season in some form. I'll try to compare them to the kind of characters we were getting on television during the era Lost was on the air, why some of them took more abuse from fans then others, and my own personal views of their difficulties and their strengths as well as how my individual opinions of them have changed in the more than twenty years since I first encountered them. By necessity some of this will involve ground I've cover before in previous articles but since that is inevitable in almost every book I've read on any TV show, I don't feel that bad. I'll still do my best to avoid repetition.

This concludes your Orientation session. Namaste and Good Luck. (I'm sorry, I just couldn't help myself.)

 

Decision 2026: Governor's Edition Why The Race For Governor In Alaska Might Be More Significant Then This Peltola Phone Banker Thought

 

As I've referred to more and more in many of my columns about politics the last few months since June I've been working the phone banks to write and help get Mary Peltola elected to the Senate in Alaska. I've explained my motivations, why I think she's the kind of Senator the country needs going forward and even what the significance is.

However I may have mentioned that the organization I'm working for is Alaska Democrats. And while our main focus has been the Peltola campaign as we enter the homestretch our calls have focused on the two other Alaska Democrats running for statewide office: Bill Hill, who's trying to take back the At Large Seat that Nick Begich took from Peltola in 2024 and the governor's race. It's that race I'd like to focus on for this article.

Now to be very clear I have priorities. As I mentioned in my previous article on the subject it is far more important that we win as many of the governor's races in the Midwest as possible and it would cause a political earthquake if  either David Jolly in Florida or Gina Hinojosa in Texas , both who are incredibly competitive so late in the campaign were to win their governor's races in those states. And I don't pretend its not more important nationally for Peltola or Hill to win seats in Congress then if the Democrats win there.

But that doesn't mean a win in the governor's race wouldn't have a certain amount of importance either. For one thing no Democrats has won a  gubernatorial race in Alaska since 1998 when Tony Knowles won reelection. But beyond the symbolism of being the first Democrat to win this office in the 21^st century there's a good case that it might show a path for Democrats to be able to win in the kinds of small states much of their party has been dismissing for the last twenty years. And if they can take two of three critical offices in the same year, it would be another in a line of showing how much the Democrats are taking their strategy to rebuild serious at a statewide level and moving away from the approached they've tried in the aftermath of 2016.

Throughout this cycle we've seen many states that Democrats have lost for year with attractive candidates running for both Senator and Governor: Josh Turek and Zach Lahn in Iowa, Sherrod Brown and Amy Acton in Ohio, James Talarico and Stephanie Hinjosa in Texas. All of them have two attractive candidates for statewide office which neither  can be easily labeled with the label "radical leftist', each of whom can complement and lift the other up on the campaign trail. (The same can't be said of other combinations such as Angie Nixon and David Jolly in Florida or Abdul El-Sayed and Jocelyn Benson in Michigan where I suspect ballot splitting will take place.) But Alaska offers the most instructive lessons because it involves a state that has been electing Republicans across the board for far longer then most of these states and is much smaller in terms of population. Forget New York: if they can win here Democrats can win everywhere.

So let's have a brief discussion about the Alaska governors in the 21^st century – and to maintain my pledge when phone banking I'll start after Sarah Palin left the governorship.

In case you forgot Palin resigned in 2009 and her lieutenant governor Sean Parnell succeeded her. In 2010 he won election in his own right with 59 percent of the vote against the Democratic opponent. At the time it was a primary that involved the Alaskan Independence Party, the Democratic Party and the libertarian Party of which Ethan Berkowitz won and would receive just 37 percent of the vote. This was the first time in Alaska's history where any party won three consecutive gubernatorial elections.

Four years later Parnell chose to run for reelection. His running mate as Lieutenant Governor was the Mayor of Anchorage Dan Sullivan. The Democrats nominated businessman Bryon Mallott. However Alaska has a fairly strong independent party and the former Republican Mayor of Valdez Bill Walker, ran as an independent.

By this point Parnell's approval ratings were in the toilet and even Sarah Palin was taking issues with the tax cuts he'd paid for the oil and gas industry. So on September 2, Walker and Mallott merged their campaign to run as a single independent ticket, with the Alaska Democratic Party endorsed. It would take nearly a week for the media to officially call the race but on November 15^th Walker was declared the winner by a remarkably close 2 percent. Combined with Mark Begich's defeat in the Senate, it was only the fifth time in the last 50 years when an incumbent governor and Senator from different political parties from the same state were defeated in the same election cycle.

Of course no one noticed because of the red wave that had swept the country during the midterms, and if they did it was because of Begich's defeat in the Senate in which Dan Sullivan had won a crowded Republican primary before narrowly beating him.

Walker faced a statewide budget deficit and proposed reinstating a statewide income tax as well as reducing annual payments to qualified state residents from the Alaska Permanent fund. This move was deeply unpopular and doomed his chances of reelection. In 2018 when he was trying to run for reelection he faced a series of controversial problems in the leadup to his election included an unpopular plea bargain involving an FAA air traffic controller accused of kidnapped and sexually assaulting an Alaska native. Finally on October 16 Mallott resigned because of 'inappropriate comments' that neither he nor Walker detailed.

Walker was a facing challenge from the Democratic Party already when Mark Begich had entered the campaign which had led him to withdraw from the Democratic primary and run as a fully independent bid. This split was expected to favor Mike Dunleavy, who ended up being the Republican nominee for governor. However 3 days after Mallott resigned, Walker announced he was suspending his campaign and endorse Begich though Walker's name was still on the ballot.

It didn't make much of a difference as Dunleavy won with 51.44 percent of the vote to Begich's 44.4 percent. All of the polls had favored Dunleavy from the start of the campaign and there were no surprises. In a night that was a disaster for Republicans on a gubernatorial level as much as Congressional (the Democrats won seven states that Republicans had held governorships the previous election) that Dunleavy was the only Republican to flip a governorship counted for less then nothing nationally.

Dunleavy was a good governor when it came to things such as natural disasters like wildfires and the 7.1 earthquake that struck Alaska three days before he took office. But he also used his line-item veto authority to make cuts to the University of Alaska and the budget of the supreme court. As early as July of 2019 there was a recall petition signed. Despite having more than sufficient signatures the state Attorney General (appointed by Dunleavy) issued an opinion against. The recall effort proceeded but it never had sufficient votes in either 2020 or 2021 to get enough signatures to put it on the ballot in November. Still going into his reelection campaign in 2022 he was one of the most popular governors in the United States. As Governor crime had dropped 31 percent with violent crime dropping nearly 16 percent.

By the time Dunleavy ran for reelection in 2022 Alaska had officially adopted ranked choice voting. As I may have explained all candidates would run in a non-partisan blanket top four primary with the top four candidates making it to the general. In the first round Dunleavy received 40 percent of the vote, Democrat Les Gara received 23 percent and Bill Walker received nearly as much running as an independent. Charlie Pierce, another Republican, rounded out the ballot with 6.5 percent.

Because of Dunleavy's immense popularity all polls ranked the race as Likely Republican. While Dunleavy's margin had dropped to just over 50 percent it was more than enough to avoid a runoff and a second round of voting. Dunleavy became the first governor of any party to win reelection since Tony Knowles in 1998. But again if people were paying attention to Alaska it was because of Mary Peltola winning a full term to house and Lisa Murkowski just barely winning reelection over a Republican challenger because of her voting to impeach Trump in 2021.

Like the majority of states Dunleavy was term limited from running for reelection in 2026. The field involved 17 candidates and the combination of non-partisan primary and the ranked choice voting system have been credited with more positive campaigning. As a result candidates have been emphasize areas of agreement.

The Republican field was far more crowded then the Democratic one and the primary led to the two top vote getters being Democratic Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, the former state representative from Alaska's 35 district and Tom Begich, the former minority leader of the Alaska Senate and the Uncle of the Republican representative in Congress Nick Begich III. (Like I said holiday dinners in the Begich household must be interesting). After he finished second Begich withdrew from the primary and endorsed Kreiss-Tomkins.

Kreiss-Tomkins is facing three Republican candidates in the general: Bernadette Wilson, a waste management company founder and conservative activist, Dave Bronson, mayor of Anchorage from 2021-2024 and Treg Taylor, Attorney General of Alaska during much of Dunleavy's last four years in office. Taylor faced scrutiny because of financial disclosure that didn't comply with Alaska state law and the Lieutenant governor briefly declined to certify him for the ballot. However four days later she reserved herself.

A large part of the reason the race is favored to go to Kreiss-Tomkins (or JKT as he's referred to in Alaska) is because he has been leaning towards bipartisanship and making it clear that politicians of all alignments are welcome in his cabinet. By contrast Wilson, who is the leading candidate among Republicans has been criticizing bipartisanship and has been calling both Taylor and Bronson to drop out and urging her supporters not to rank other candidates.

While all three Republicans generally agree on most issues there are key difference on two critical points. Wilson is the only candidate advocating for a return to paying out full Permanent Fund dividends, something that Dunleavy campaigned on but was unable to implement as governor. The Republicans also differ on the issue of data centers. Bronson and Taylor are generally supportive of the issue, portraying them as an economic opportunity for the state, provided they generated their own electricity and didn't drive up energy costs. Wilson is opposed to data centers, highlighting their environmental impact – a huge deal in Alaska. Kreiss-Tomkins had advocated for a moratorium on the issue until a regulatory framework can be developed. (It has to be said that he has received large donations from the AI industry which may give credence to Wilson's allegation about his trustworthiness on the issue.)

Because of the divided Republican field JKT has been building a lead in the polls ever since the primary. In polls in the first round JKT he polls with 48.8 percent of the vote, nearly twice as much as his nearest opponent Wilson. In a potential second round he maintains that lead with Taylor's votes likely going to Bronson. Most polls indicate in a head to head challenge he would easily beat Wilson, with the weighted average currently showing him ahead by nearly six points.

JKT does have virtues. For one he'd be only 37 if elected which would make him a fairly young man to become governor. He was elected to represent the 34^th district for the first time when he was 23, dropping out of Yale in order to run. His first race was so close that it took a month to call, winning by just 32 votes. In his freshman term he introduced House Bill 216, which made 20 Alaska Native languages state languages which was signed into law in April of 2014. He's also done a lot of good work for Alaska helping found Outer Coast College in Sitka. A college that is built on ''academics, labor and self-government." It's curriculum emphasizes bridging Western and indigenous ways of knowing. He was also vital in forming Alaska's Covid-19 simulation program Covid Act Now. In both cases these programs were helped with Republican governors.

No one will confuse JKT with Mamdani but I'm inclined to look more favorably on his accomplishments before running for Governor than my current Mayor. He's only three years older than Mamdani but has far more qualifications to be governor then Mamdani had when he ran for Mayor and he's done more for his state in a decade in public service then Mamdani has accomplished in his career. He certainly has a far harder row to become Governor than Mamdani ever did running for Mayor in New York.

I don't pretend that  if JKT wins it will matter to anyone outside of Alaska the way that Peltola's victory in the Senate will or Bill Hill winning in Congress. But as of today JKT has the best chance of winning in almost every political survey of the three major candidates running in this cycle. His gubernatorial run is currently ranked Lean Democrat in most polls where as Peltola is still considered mostly in Toss-Up to Tilt Democrat and it looks increasingly probable that Begich will win reelection.

And the fact America – not just the Democrats – need more competent elected officials in every major political office. Having endured a decade of  bigoted near-fascism from the major force in Republican politics and an increasing lean towards left-leaning populism from the bigger forces in Democratic politics, the country at large is exhausted by both. The country at large is exhausted by demagogues and showboats and by and large wants to go back to an era where its elected officials is quiet, competent professionals who do their jobs without making everything about appealing to the loud rage of one side or the other. I personally would welcome a return to an era where elected officials both ran for office and did their jobs with no drama and publicity.

To that end I have no problem doing my part to see that JKT becomes governor much as I am helping Mary Peltola become Senator.  Voting for quiet competence may not be as public as some candidates but that's the point. I think America wants its elected officials to be good at their jobs, work across the aisle and get things done with as little fanfare as possible. That's as true in the least populated states as the most populated ones and I hope we can get that.