Posts Tagged → conservative
Is Canada now a political gulag for Biden?
Imagine you donated to some conservative causes, some conservative candidates. You have probably left some pro-America comments on-line, including some criticism of “president*” Biden or his administration.
Now imagine you take a summer trip up to Canada. You know, hang out at a remote lake with your friends, catch walleye, pike, bass, and maybe lake trout. Eat well, relax under the stars, and recharge your battery. You have done it off and on for twenty years and you are on a first-name basis with the lodge owner or outfitter who gets you tucked in after you cross the Canadian border.
Only now, something has changed, this week. This is not imagination, it is real. Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau just declared martial law, and his administration is already seizing the private bank accounts, pets, vehicles, passports, etc. of Canadian citizens. These people being victimized by their own formerly democratic government are not lawbreakers. They didn’t set fire to anything, they didn’t vandalize anything, they just protested peacefully or donated to lawful organizations that organize democratically to oppose Trudeau.
But now under Trudeau’s martial law, the rule of law is suspended. There are no objective standards with which law enforcement officers (who have been caught texting their enjoyment of brutalizing peaceful protestors in Ottawa) conduct themselves. Worse, the Trudeau government has a political enemies list of not just Canadians, but also Americans. And they are probably borrowing from the Biden gang’s enemy list, too.
So imagine you arrive in June at the Canadian border to set out on your annual fishing trip, and the next thing you know, you are being handcuffed and spirited away to some remote Canadian prison. You have not been charged with any crime, and because Canada is now under martial law, you have no due process rights. None. You ask to call your family to tell them where you are, and that is declined. Because you are either a political enemy of Biden or Trudeau, you are now completely screwed, because the Biden Administration is not going to weigh in to help out you, their citizen.
Nope, the Biden Administration is going to thank Trudeau for locking up their political enemies for them. And God only knows where you will be in a month or a year.
This is where we stand right now. By all indications, Canada is America’s new gulag, where political prisoners will be either sent or caught at the border and stored out of sight and out of reach. Zero civil liberties and zero human rights.
If I were an American who had exercised any of our constitutional rights here on American soil in the past two years, I would not step foot anywhere near the Canadian border. I would stay far away from Canada. Because it is probably a trap that will destroy your life. Treat Canada like a dangerous No-Go Zone (and the same can be said for Washington, DC, and many lawless leftist cities around America, where conservatives have zero civil rights or even human rights).
All around the world democracy is suddenly under assault, from within the democratic countries, not from without. New Zealand, Australia, Europe, Canada, and America are all being attacked by anti-democracy forces from within our own governments. Why this lawlessness is happening all at once is anyone’s guess. It certainly does appear to be coordinated, and all of these inside-job political hijackers are ruthless.
Unless you are an illegal alien from some other country…who might prove useful in displacing and oppressing the native people here in America, or Canada…
Cultural Warlord Wanted for PA Senate Candidate
While sitting on the North Face cabin porch with some Democrat Party friends on the Lycoming-Tioga county border last Sunday, I was politely asked “the only political question” of our time together:
“What do you think of (D) Lt. Governor John Fetterman’s chances at winning the US Senate seat being vacated by Patricia Toomey?”
And I responded: “John Fetterman may be an anti-democracy, anti-America, totalitarian communist with the face of a worn out prize fighter, but he has an honest charisma that is going to be tough for most Republican Party candidates to beat.”
This is because most Republican Party candidates everywhere, and in Pennsylvania in particular, are well groomed, boring, milquetoast moderates who really stand for nothing except getting a public pension and invitations to all the right cocktail parties. If Fetterman has the looks of a Neanderthal’s old shoe, he still is identifiable as a manly man, and a refreshingly plain-spoken one at that. In a different age and place, Fetterman could easily have been a warlord with a sword across his knee and a coat of chain mail over his shoulders, his beetle brow scouring his subjects with fierce determination to win and to dominate.
Contrast this kind of mindset and distinctive personal presence with the usual GOP spawn that has bubbled up from the top of the donor class to become a candidate for anything: Timid sounding, almost effeminate, tepid, moderate and clean-cut appearing; ruffle no feathers, offend no one, instantly forgettable. And historically speaking, which kind of personal presence wins the hearts and minds of the people, the fierce warlord, or the milquetoast fairy?
Easy answer: Warlords win.
And the American electorate is not just hungry for strong leaders, we are starving for them, because we know America is up for grabs. Leftists know that strong Democrat personalities will make their Marxist revolution succeed, and conservatives know that strong Republican personalities will push back against the Marxists and make America’s Constitution prevail, thereby saving the Republic.
President Donald J. Trump won both the 2016 and 2020 elections because of his fierce and unwavering determination to put The People ahead of the political donor class and the Washington, DC Swamp. The only people who did not understand this then and who not only still do not understand it now, but who also oppose it now are the same old GOP donor class and Chamber of Compromise who try like hell to elect wimpy wusses they can easily control. To the GOPe and its elite benefactors, the Republican and conservative voter is now and always has been barely an afterthought. They don’t give a fig about our views or needs. The GOPe just needs our votes every two to four years to get their milquetoast Gumby candidates over the finish line, and then they immediately kick us and our values to the curb until the next election.
And so looking at the current lineup of declared and possible Republican Party candidates who might be the nominee to face Fetterman, what qualities do we see?
- Feckless
- Hopelessly moderate and standing for nothing
- Money-oriented and ignoring basic values, culture, borders, language
- Afraid of going to war and braving battle to save America
I won’t name names, but outside of Joe Gale, the list of Republicans running for PA governor is pretty much the same thing.
Who Pennsylvania needs to beat Fetterman is a GOP cultural warlord. A candidate who listens to and cares about the electorate, all of whom are values-driven, culture-driven, America-first-driven. Someone who is unafraid at all times, especially unafraid to firmly and honestly speak her or his mind and to do battle to the last dying gasp, for the sake of everything most Americans hold dearest.
I don’t know if I have seen such a person yet, but if you do, please let me know. I’d like to make a small political donation and volunteer my valuable time to help that person beat Fetterman.
“Ridgie” no more
In 1998 I joined the Governor Tom Ridge administration in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, fresh off of a solid seven years of DC Swamp. Coming from the Washington, DC, federal bureaucracy, I was considered a professional insider and policy whiz. My own view was that I was a refugee from the anti-citizen, anti-taxpayer, anti-America administrative state that was so crazily overboard that I could no longer work inside of it. My job in the Ridge Administration was as Director of Education & Information on the executive staff at the PA Department of Conservation & Natural Resources (DCNR).
The state civil service bureaucrats in Harrisburg had a name for people like me. We were called “Ridgies,” because we were so dedicated to the unique Tom Ridge way of doing things. And what was that unique way of doing things? What was it about being dedicated to Governor Ridge that earned us this almost mocking sobriquet?
In a word, Ridge was honest. He brought a refreshing honesty and down-home common sense to running government that had not been seen in decades. So different and refreshing was this bright light being shone on The People’s business, that it left those of us who were implementing it with almost Moses-like beams of light emanating from our faces. You could say we were bright eyed and bushy tailed, excited to do our work. We humored the staid bureaucrats, but we meant it and we persevered.
I was proud to be a Ridgie, because Tom Ridge represented almost everything that was good and necessary in government doing the taxpayer’s work.
Fast forward 25 years and holy moley, what has happened…. Governor Tom Ridge has endorsed senile, corrupt, pedophile, racist failed liberal career politician Joe Biden over President Donald Trump. Trump being the Tom Ridge of today, Biden being everything that everyone hates about corrupt career politicians.
All that Ridge’s bizarre endorsement did for me was make me realize that unlike when he was governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge now values the permanent and unaccountable administrative state over the interests of the citizenry. When Ridge was governor, he confronted Pennsylvania’s hide-bound bureaucracies and forced them to serve The People, the forgotten taxpayers who underwrite all of government. Now, Ridge is on the side of that administrative state, a complete 180 degree flip from where he was.
What can account for this change of philosophy? Probably that Ridge Global, Ridge’s lobbying and consulting firm, is so closely tied to that same big government administrative state. He certainly is not advocating for good policy, because President Trump is implementing everything that Ridge used to say that he believed in, and here Ridge is opposing it.
I feel badly that such a good man as Ridge has been flipped by filthy lucre. It is painful to see someone whose good citizen name inspired us, his staff, to be proud “Ridgies,” to now renounce and stand against all he once stood for. The person in whom I put my trust to implement citizenry-saving policies is now an open and proud tool for anti-America forces and activists.
Contrary to what Ridge claimed in his Atlantic article earlier this year, he is definitely not a conservative. Because his policy views are very liberal. And based on the things he routinely says in public, and his consistent support for an obviously corrupt Joe Biden, Ridge can in no way claim to be a Republican any longer. Yet he is using his claim as a “conservative Republican” to advance anti-conservative, anti-Republican ideas and people. This is not honest behavior.
Sadly, Ridge is just as much a part of the fake news as all the other fake news people. In turn, I must now say that I am no longer a “Ridgie.”
Unlike Governor Tom Ridge, I remain on the side of The People. I am still, however, a Trumpie, loud and proud.
USA! USA! USA!
TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP!
Quiet hero Jim Broussard moves on to next stage of being
Jim Broussard was one of those old school quiet, soft-spoken Southern gentlemen who could easily get by at a liberal cocktail party just because he was the nicest, most affable guy on Planet Earth. Unless you pressed him hard on politics, he would smile easily, laugh easily, tell some easy jokes, and make some subtly incisive social or political comments, and ask a lot of questions. But inside he was more than just quick political wit and analyst. He was probably my favorite guy in Harrisburg politics, and for a very long time he “sat in” for Dr. Krug at Charlie Gerow’s monthly public policy meetings downtown. Two weeks ago Jim left human life as we know it on Planet Earth, and if there is an afterlife, I am confident Jim is enjoying the best it has to offer. The man lived life to its fullest, left a huge footprint, without crossing any double yellow lines or cursing.
Jim and I first crossed paths at Charlie Gerow’s office, probably around 2009. He impressed me, which is difficult to do (observers of Josh know this, for better and for worse). He immediately asked me out for coffee, and ever after for a buck he would give the best political advice available around here. He sent the best Christmas holiday cards, because he used collectible stamps from decades past, and every card included genuine well wishes about things specific to the recipient’s life. Jim Broussard was a big positive force on Planet Earth, and I will miss him very much.
Below is the email his wife sent out, which includes his obituary, and then some photos I took of Jim over the years while holding forth at Gerow’s place:
From 1968 to 1970, Dr. Broussard performed his active-duty military service in the Army Adjutant General’s Corps at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, reaching the rank of captain. Subsequently, he served as a reserve officer in the Office of the Chief of Military History. He taught American history at Clarkson College of Technology, Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State), served as the historian of the Indiana state legislature, and returned to teaching at Ball State University and the University of Delaware. In 1983, he was appointed chairman of the history and political science department at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, PA. His publications include The Southern Federalists, 1800-1816, and Ronald Reagan, Champion of Conservatism, as well as scholarly articles and book reviews.
In the late 1970’s, Dr. Broussard began working to start an historical society focused on the early national period of American history, which he thought a neglected field. He founded the Society for the History of the Early American Republic (SHEAR), which is now a thriving and respected part of the historical profession. In recent years, he came to view political history also as a neglected field, and at the time of his death was engaged in establishing the Center for Political History, based at Lebanon Valley College.
In 1989, Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey proposed a tax plan which required a constitutional amendment permitting different categories of people to be taxed at different rates. Dr. Broussard believed this would not only raise taxes but would do it in an unfair manner. He formed the group Citizens Against Higher Taxes (CAHT) and campaigned against the amendment across Pennsylvania. It was defeated by a margin of three to one, the biggest defeat of an amendment in the history of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Broussard was a member of the Lebanon Country Club, the Steitz Club, Phi Beta Kappa, and numerous historical societies. He is survived by his wife, Margaret; their son, David Broussard, and David’s wife, Sophie, and their children Elsa Rose and Samuel, of Atlanta; his brother, Thomas R. Broussard, of New York City; his sister, Nancy Leonard, of Kentucky; his sister, Dorothy Bell, of New Mexico; one niece and three nephews. Arrangements for services will be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Center for Political History at Lebanon Valley College, Annville, PA.”
Somebody Primary RINO US Sen. Pat Toomey
Few personality types bother guys more than weak, weasely, whiny men, and US Senator Pat Toomey is all that in spades, and much more, or less. It stinks to have an elected “leader” like Toomey demonstrate so little leadership quality, and even worse, to publicly flout his less-than-manly characteristics. Always appearing in public with some kind of fakey senatorial bearing, Toomey’s speech is similarly a fake serious tone, a kind of deeply thoughtful grasshopper. What a show. He reminds us very much of another phony RINO, congressman Charlie Dent, now thankfully gone from public life where he also did so much damage to the American people.
Pat Toomey is one of the great RINOs of today’s Republican Party. For the uninitiated, RINO means “Republican In Name Only,” which really translates into a liberal. Not a conservative. In it for the money. Not committed to freedom or liberty or the US Constitution.
Toomey exhibits weak-kneed indecision and back-stabbing liberalism traits pretty much every day on the job. He does not have the president’s back, but much like another RINO senator, Mittens Romney, Toomey seeks to falsely burnish his credentials by actually blocking, damaging, or criticizing the one person who is trying to right the American ship, President Trump. As if Toomey is so, so thoughtful and carefully considerate.
Toomey has been a real go-getter on disarming law abiding citizens, hatching one gun-grabbing scheme after another, always punishing the law-abiding and never, ever being tough on actual crime and real criminals. The other day he was one of a few US Senate RINOs to vote with the anti-America Democrats against the president’s border emergency wall, as if there is no border crisis, no illegal invasion crisis. Toomey might as well join AOC down at the border handing out taxpayer-funded sombreros and bottled water to illegals on their way into the taxpayer funded haven of America.
And on this new Trump-Ukraine phone call fake scandal, where a rogue spy within the American defense system filed a fake “whistleblower complaint,” Toomey says the President’s phone call may have been “inappropriate,” but not impeachable. Since when was the effort by the US President to bring to justice a treasonous and corrupt American, Joe Biden, inappropriate? America and Ukraine have an anti-corruption treaty that the president was implementing, as is his job. Toomey should have pointed to admittedly corrupt Joe Biden as the subject of this scandal. Biden used his previous Vice President position to blackmail Ukraine and to enrich his family.
Is Toomey against bringing Biden to justice?
Even worse, several US senators from the Democrat Party actually visited the Ukraine and wrote a letter, directly threatening Ukraine leaders, saying they would vote to withhold promised US defense funds if the Ukraine actually DID investigate Joe Biden’s son. How is that for hypocritical and bald-faced lying irony?
And yet, where is Pat Toomey on all of this? He says nothing about his senate colleagues blackmailing Ukraine and is ho-hum about the US President just doing his duty as president.
Like just about every other Washington, DC political hack, spineless career politician Pat Toomey remains purposefully and deeply insulated from reality, and yet he has so much negative impact on the real lives the rest of us lead. If there is one solid RINO candidate for a strong primary opponent, it is Pat Toomey. The guy has no fight in him, not for us, and it would be easy for a good primary opponent to simply tick off the laundry list of assaults Toomey has led against citizen rights and needs over the years he has inhabited this seat. Someone please primary this bad guy. You will get a lot of support from real Republicans. That is, patriots and conservatives.
Trump got played by the PA GOPe this week
Pennsylvania Primary Election Day Tuesday this week was not an especially exciting time, as voting days can go, because few names and positions were on the ballot, anywhere.
Somewhere up north Mabel’s cow got more votes than the local township highway manager, which caused a brief fuss. A tie-breaker of sorts was held and the road master challenged the cow to mow the grass along the road margin faster and better than he could. The cow did eat along at a pretty good clip, but the three voters agreed that the fresh cow patties left behind were a detriment. Some Amish happened along, ate the cow, and that settled it.
One bright spot here in Central Pennsylvania is where Senator Rich Alloway retired, kind of abruptly, if you ask me, and a special election was held between a hard-bitten retired Army colonel and long time entrepreneur, and a young, sweeeet, gentle as the morning breeze airhead of a Millennial Democrat who just wants to play Santa Claus with your money, goshdarnit her intentions are just so good.
The Army colonel won.
Three cheers for Central Pennsylvania.
One truly sad aspect of the day was the outcome of the most watched and only state-wide election for Pennsylvania Superior Court judge. With three beautiful and practically identical looking Republican women running for two open seats, a lot more interest was garnered.
Of the three primary contestants, former Montour County District Attorney Rebecca Warren is the most qualified for that seat. Articulate, forceful, experienced, principled, poised even with a kid on her hip, Warren has a well-deserved strong state-wide following. She was no shoo-in for one of the two seats, but it appeared she had a very good chance.
Too good of a chance for the Pennsylvania GOP, which is made of people who dislike conservatives even more than Democrats. So the PA GOPe ran a team of two candidates, Ms. Peck and Miss King, against the lone conservative, Warren.
As a plausible candidate for even township road master, let alone the very high court she aimed for, Miss Meghan King is only slightly more believable than the airhead who ran against the Army colonel in Alloway’s former district, and is probably less knowledgable than the cow up north. Seriously, the highly inexperienced, young, and dumb-of-tongue King was not up to the task of running for much of any public seat, and yet here she is, buoyed up by the good ol’ boys of the PA GOPe. It’s a lot of horsepower behind a newspaper sailboat, which is intriguing almost as much as why Alloway abruptly flew the cuckoo’s nest.
Serious forces are at work here, folks, “a dark and powerful magic,” to quote my favorite magician.
Peck stands on her own merits, and I’d be proud to have her on the Superior Court. But King? For real?! She sounds and looks like a child, and her public speaking is hesitant, halting, uncertain, because, goshdarnit, she was hand-picked to be a puppet or a parrot for the good ol’ boys, and she has not one clue about what it is she is saying or doing up at the podium. King is going to get check-mated by some kookus mongus leftwing Democrat in November. It won’t take much.
So Tuesday’s election came down to the amazing Rebecca Warren vs. the GOP good ol’ boys’ puppet, Miss King, and at the last minute, President Trump was duped by the GOPe guys into tweeting his support for Miss King after his wonderful rally in Montour County, here in central PA. And sure as shootin’, next thing ya know, Miss King obtained more votes than either of the other two candidates, and the cow to boot. Sure, Warren came very close to winning a seat, but King did not earn what she got through both the party establishment support and from the president’s tweet.
What bothers people like me about this election outcome is we work for years to find and get behind solid, conservative, independent-minded, constitutionally-based grass roots candidates like Rebecca Warren, and then the GOPe comes along and snatches away the victory and replaces it with a dishrag of a human being. It’s why the Republican Party, nationwide, is full of so many lame human beings, with no gumption, no vision; they just have a desire for power and to do what they are told by party bosses. They connive their way through all of these elections.
If President Trump actually knew how much damage he just did by supporting Miss King, and how badly he was duped by the PA GOPe, he would swear off primary endorsements forever. He did the same thing in Alabama two years ago and got stung. Winning primary elections by conniving simply places unqualified losers in positions of power, which works great only for those pulling the puppet strings. We don’t get great people, like Trump. When will Trump learn that he would never get the PA GOPe endorsement, not even for township road master, if he were in King’s shoes. The PA GOPe strongly opposes strong, independent – minded candidates.
Those of us who admire President Trump are hopeful that he will learn to ignore the same GOPe guys who have screwed him over since 2015 and who will continue to interfere with his agenda until 2025 (unless there is five bucks to be made; then they will come flocking). Otherwise he is simply shooting himself in the foot by helping zeros like King get elected over people who admire him, who share his values, and who want to fully implement his agenda, like Warren.
Dear PA GOPe: We know you guys care only about holding power, but you should know that with every stolen election like this where a grass roots Rebecca Warren loses, you chip away at the base’s commitment to the GOP and you make us dislike you ever more.
CPAC banning reporter Laura Loomer proves frailty of “conservative inc.”
This past week, just days ago, intrepid and fearless reporter Laura Loomer was blocked from entering the CPAC convention, having already been there for days and having already spent her money on lodging etc. As she handed the security guys her credentials, they took them away from her and prevented her from entering the convention.
The annual Conservative Political Action Conference has been the gathering place for Republicans and conservatives for many years now. It’s a place to air out new policy ideas, air out old grievances, air out old stinky candidates or debut new ones, network, share on-the-ground war stories, and get new ideas for how to advance America-first policies and laws, including how to get conservatives elected.
But like so many other public events, of any sort, people try to make money from CPAC. Especially its administrators. When money and ego become central to the event’s raison d’etre, away go the core principles that once caused people to convene in the first place. Now CPAC has gone full commercial and totally corporate, with all the usual and customary strings attached to corporate sponsorships. Like don’t rock the boat. Suddenly raw and honest debate becomes “uncivilized,” and the “Professional Republicans” move in to correct and santize everything.
God forbid someone says something offensive! The well groomed, serious faced, and utterly hollow “Professional Republican” robots will move in to take you away.
And Laura Loomer did in fact say something offensive. Really really bad. Her big offense was to repeatedly or doggedly ask CNN political activist Oliver Darcy why he uses his celebrity status to drum conservatives out of digital websites and platforms like Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Venmo, Patreon and so on.
Darcy is a guy who publicly crows every time a conservative is kicked off of some platform and loses their free speech rights, for the huge violation of disagreeing with the radical leftists who own or manage those public platforms. It’s not that the conservatives are doing anything wrong per se, it’s that disagreeing with the liberal book burners and anti free speech control freaks who run Fakebook, Twitter etc is itself a huge violation.
And so Loomer did what real reporters do, or used to do, she found a more-important-than-thou untouchable person (Darcy) and asked pointed questions about their (his) at-best questionable behavior. Darcy then complained to CPAC management and voila, Loomer is scrubbed from his glowing presence. Because being a happy shiny establishment media darling at CPAC is more important than what CPAC supposedly stands for.
See, the bigger question is why Oliver Darcy is even at CPAC, and then why would he expect to be protected from inquisitive reporters there, doing the job that mainstream media activists long since stopped doing. Darcy is opposed to everyone and everything represented at CPAC. He’s not there because he shares the values or principles of the attendees; rather, he’s there to be a mole, to undermine CPAC from the inside.
In any event, as CPAC has become yet another corporate bandwagon, run by “Professional Republicans” who represent “Republican, Inc.” (or “Conservative, Inc.”), the bastardized evil hybrid of political action for individual liberty and limited government with making money. Loads of money. That is what CPAC is now, and Laura Loomer threatened to undermine the shiny happy people appearance that professional GOP functionaries and their financiers value most above all.
Strike another GOPe blow against grass roots citizen activists and reporters, struggling against a big money uniparty made of both Republican and Democrat establishments.
And yet, Laura Loomer emerges as another citizen hero, a sort of Joan of Arc, a Rosa Parks who questions why not just she but all American citizens who rudely (sarcasm here) ask simple questions about the nature of our government and our rights must sit at the back of the bus, or as Oliver Darcy and CNN would have it, get kicked off the bus altogether.
You go, girl! Go get ‘em, Laura.
Sometimes a threesome just sucks
Welp. Primary Election Day is now behind us. Thank God.
Yesterday’s bright moment was Andrew Lewis running and winning against a large part of the GOP establishment in the 105th State House District.
It lies around out through Harrisburg’s eastern suburbs and could easily swing “RINO,” but yesterday it did not. Proving the power of staying positive and of doing door-to-door, Lewis impressed so many voters that many of them eagerly relayed to us volunteer poll workers their happy experiences meeting him at their home’s front door.
That said, much of yesterday’s political outcomes were unfortunate, for those of us who trust and hope in We, The People and who have learned not to trust the GOP establishment.
Woody Allen once quipped “I believe in relationships. Love between two people is a beautiful thing. Between three, it’s fantastic.”
Well, sometimes that truism just doesn’t hold water, and nowhere was this observation more evident than the results from yesterday’s political threesomes in Pennsylvania.
As we political watchers and participants have seen repeatedly, and as I myself have experienced as a candidate for office, three-way races can and often do allow liberal Republicans to prevail. And in fact, it now seems that the threesome approach is a significant strategy for GOPe candidates.
Yesterday, Dan Meuser won the PA 9th congressional district election (he lives in the 8th District) through the benefit of the two grass roots candidates (Halcovage and Uehlinger) each siphoning off sufficient votes to allow the establishment candidate to get the plurality. There is some question out there about whether Uehlinger was, in fact, a conservative, or even a Republican; despite getting in the race first, his campaign seemed the least organized. Halcovage was not terribly organized, either, and did not respond to important questionnaires from interest groups. Firearms Owners Against Crime advised voters to select only Meuser of the three candidates.
Actually, Meuser may have obtained more than 50% of the vote, which is an indication that he might have won on his own merits (e.g. he was the only candidate deemed acceptable on Second Amendment rights to FOAC). All his negatives notwithstanding.
One lesson for sure comes out of that particular three-way race: If you cannot present yourself as an organized, credible candidate, then please spare everyone the drama and do not run.
People who wake up on some Thursday morning and say “What the heck, I am gonna run for office” have every right to do so, but recognize that there are consequences to this. Better to have a one-on-one clear choice for the voters. We will almost always have an establishment candidate, so pick the one best grass roots candidate as The People’s champion, and chase off the rest.
In the PA governor’s race, liberal dark horse Laura Ellsworth knew she had no chance of winning. I mean, with liberal policy positions like hers, she should run as a Democrat (she said she would not accept money from the NRA). But run she did, and though she obtained less than 20% of the vote, she siphoned off sufficient votes (especially in Western PA) from true conservative and US Army veteran Paul Mango to get Scott Wagner the plurality.
Mango is from western PA and would have otherwise obtained most of Ellsworth’s votes.
Yesterday I was a volunteer poll worker from 7:00 AM until 7:35PM in the Harrisburg area.
What I heard from GOP voters (and mostly from women over 50 years old) at several different polls was that they were angry at both Mango and Wagner for all the negative ads. They knew Ellsworth was liberal, but they were voting for her as an alternative to the two boys engaged in distasteful roughhousing.
Wasn’t this a variable we were picking up from women voters weeks ago? Yes.
Did someone pay Ellsworth to run? One asks, because she knew her chances were very low to nil, that her liberal ideas and policy positions are way out of synch with the vast majority of Republican voters.
Ellsworth the Spoiler has now burned her bridges with about 40% of the state’s Republican super voters, which even the most obtuse political nerds would expect as a logical outcome.
So why else was she in it? One cannot help but wonder if she was paid to play the spoiler. It was done in the last race I ran in….by someone involved in the race she ran in…so…
When we look at Idaho’s primary yesterday, a similar scene unfolded. The unlikely liberal GOPe candidate beat the conservative, by way of siphoning of votes by a third candidate who himself had no hope of winning.
Folks, the only way these third candidates can run is if they are independently wealthy and just yee-haw running for office; or, they are willing to sacrifice their name in one race by trying to build it up for a future run at some other office; or, most likely, they have “other” sources of income or promises made to reward them for playing the spoiler in the current race.
So, as we move into a more experienced and savvy grass roots political landscape, begun just ten years ago as the “tea party,” we are learning that our own strength can be used against us judo-like by the same corrupt political establishment we are trying to defeat.
Threesome races may look democratic, and it is true that every American has the right to run for office. But sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Sometimes those threesomes are designed to undermine the conservative grass roots candidate, and to help the plain vanilla milquetoast establishment candidate win.
Sometimes political threesomes just plain suck. And not in a good way. They can be designed to exploit the big-hearted nature of so many grass roots activists, so that their enemy, the GOPe, can win.
Lesson learned.
Why I am voting for Paul Mango for governor, and not for Scott Wagner
When I stood out for twelve hours in the freezing weather four years ago, handing out Scott Wagner for Senate brochures at a polling place in York County, I was helping Pennsylvania elect someone to state government who promised to remain independent of political party leaders and the insider dealings that are the despicable hallmark of Pennsylvania Republican party politics.
Within a few months of Wagner’s historic upset win over a creaky establishment, I began to regret his obvious character flaws. And then six months later I had the unfortunate experience of having Wagner lie through omission to my face.
“Yeah, I know John DiSanto,” said Wagner.
What Wagner did not say was that he was aggressively promoting DiSanto as a would-be candidate for state senate. Fast forward another six months, and DiSanto was on track to be the state senator for the 15th district. He has been a huge improvement over the former senator, Rob Teplitz, a political radical out of place here in this region who was also dedicated to his constituents. I have no real hard feelings about DiSanto now bearing the burden of serving in state government, as it comes with big personal costs that I realize I would not want.
But I saw then that Scott Wagner was not the straight-up guy a lot of us believed he was when we worked hard to get him elected.
Wagner has this habit of ascribing to himself full responsibility for his material and political successes. As a capitalist I applaud anyone who can and does leave to their son or nephew a running business and millions of dollars. And I also applaud those people who are strong enough to take those inheritances and build on them, instead of squandering them, as so many Americans do.
But it upsets me to hear Wagner take credit for these things when he was simply the beneficiary of other people’s hard work.
No, Mr. Wagner, you did not win that special election in York County all by yourself.
Rather, we, the hard working campaign volunteers won it for you, by getting fired up people out to every polling place in the district and demonstrating to the voters that we, the people, wanted you to be elected. Voters saw our passion and responded by handing the GOPe a tough and well-deserved loss.
No, you did not create that trucking business as you constantly claim, you inherited a good portion of it.
Two days ago at a dog-and-pony show press event, Scott Wagner released a phony “internal” poll result saying that he already leads in this primary race by 50.2% to Paul Mango’s 20-something percent.
Flanking Wagner was the chairman and the vice-chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, the same GOPe that Wagner once opposed but which he has now shamelessly joined. Wagner’s willingness to trade his political independence for political gain with the same old political insiders is another indication that he is not a straight-up guy. Rather, Wagner is just another aggressive political opportunist willing to sell his grandma and his former supporters to get ahead.
The message of having the two GOP political bosses next to him at the event is simple: “Vote for our insider stooge here.”
But if Wagner is already so far ahead in the polls, then why does he need the personal presence of political bosses at his press event? The whole thing is phony – the supposed poll (two other recent polls show a statistical dead heat between Mango and Wagner, with also-ran Laura Ellsworth in the single digits), the fake political endorsement, his supposed political independence. One thing is for sure, Scott Wagner is now yet just another political insider, trying to use every object around him to gain power and prestige. Just like he used and then discarded us campaign volunteers to get into the state senate.
Wagner’s political views have spanned the full spectrum, from great to crazy left, like his transvestite bathroom bill sponsorship.
Will the real Scott Wagner please stand up? Without screaming at anyone, please.
Contrast this chaotic mess to his primary opponent Paul Mango.
Paul Mango is about as exciting as watching the grass grow.
He is soft-spoken, measured, very smart and articulate on policy, and to me, mostly boring. Though he has gotten better at public presentations as time has gone on.
Is Mango the fiery revolutionary that Scott Wagner was four years ago? Nope.
Neither is Scott Wagner.
Is Mango the political trench warfare conservative that Wagner used to be, and which many of us wish for more each day? Nope.
Neither is Scott Wagner.
Mango is a work horse, not a show horse.
Instead of having all of Wagner’s drama and duplicity, Mango is a simple guy with true blue collar working class roots, who put himself through West Point and became a real-deal warrior in the US Army 101st Rangers, and who went on to build a career for himself that put him at the financial top of American society. Not to mention his all-American family. He is a US Army veteran who served our nation, thank you very much.
Mango is the all-American rags-to-riches story every American politician wishes to be, and which Wagner has tried to falsely claim he is.
This is why I am voting for Paul Mango and not for Scott Wagner.
You make up your own mind on this race, and you should also know I made up my mind through direct experience with both candidates. Sometimes it isn’t just how great a candidate is, but also how awful the other guy is.
Mango is good enough, Wagner is awful.