This week in the saga

Virginia votes on the second of November and the Republican wins it — a state the exile lost by ten points a year earlier. He watched it from Florida. He had not campaigned there in person, had not been invited to, and the winner had spent months declining to say his name; the office publishes a telephone rally and then, at one in the morning, a note thanking the base for turning out. By the third the record reads four races and four wins, and the argument in the paper is about who the victory belongs to. It is the first good night of the exile, and the thing that made it work was his absence.