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GHWB: Washington DC likes its Republicans Dead, and Why Bipartisanship Died with Him

In addition to the amazing amount of laudatory handwringing by an ordinarily partisan and hostile press, the fact that even the stand-out , stand-alone US Patent & Trademark Office is closed tomorrow, in memory of the recently deceased President George H.W. Bush, it stands to reason that former DC residents-turned-DC skeptics like me are concluding that DC only likes Republicans when they are dead.

The long established Leftwing media mantra that Republicans are either stupid, or evil, or racist etc. etc. magically ends when a moderate Republican like GHWB dies. They never said these nice things about him when he was alive. Suddenly his long time willingness to “reach across the aisle” and repeatedly cave in to Leftwing demands is a laudable bipartisan trait so missed now in Washington, DC.

The truth is that bipartisanship, as defined by the post-WWII litany of policy and legislative cave-ins, willing defeats, and betrayals by Washington DC Republicans, has come to an end. Bipartisanship always meant Republicans giving in to liberal Democrat demands, and now that the well is dry for a majority of Republican voters, that is, there are no more concessions to be made without Republicans simply pulling out a wakizashi and committing seppuku, the idea of giving in yet one more time is anathema to the base and many newly elected officials.

Simply said, there is no more bipartisan giving to be done by Republicans. For seventy years they already done given in on everything they could without absolutely giving up on everything they believe in and stand for. This is why on issues like civilian disarmament (“common sense gun control”) and climate change (“environmental quality”) Democrats have now fully come out from hiding and gone for broke.  On these issues Democrats no longer lie and dissemble and promise it’s not as bad as their enemies say; now they make it clear: No guns that are actual guns allowed for any civilian, and expect coercive big government catastrophic Western Civilization -ending ‘climate change’ policies masquerading as reasonable mom-n-pop water quality environmental policy.

To Democrats and their mainstream media arm, President George Herbert Walker Bush #41 represents the halcyon days of Democrat push and Republican give. He was definitely not the leader of pushback that we have in the current White House resident. And so he must be lauded, and missed oh so much. To the mainstream media, GHWB’s legacy was showing how a real Republican ought to lead in politics: By falling back and giving in and losing whenever given the chance.

That was bipartisanship, and it was how Republicans became great and good in the eyes of the DC establishment. And it is why so many establishment Republicans, the GOPe, still oppose President Trump: By standing firm and even pushing back for pro-America, pro-Constitution principles and policies, Trump prevents GOPe members from getting their public plaudits from the biggest mouthpiece around, the Democrat Media.

OK, call me a Whig

For those like me who are bothered by the simplistic, almost child-like identity politics of partisan political party identification, there is always the third way out: Independent.

True to its name, being an Independent means that one is much less driven by one-dimensional partisan interests, and much more broadly politically driven, by more philosophical interests.

Oh please, don’t kid yourself that the Democrats and the Republicans today represent philosophical strands of thought on government involvement in the lives of the citizenry. That is a joke.

Both main political parties, Ds and Rs, are each practically wholly-owned subsidiaries of their respective special interest groups. Because I believe in economic freedom, among other things, I am more drawn to the Rs than the Ds, who have now pretty much openly embraced socialism.

Socialism is the opposite of economic freedom, and socialism requires tremendous inroads into personal freedom to achieve its artificial “income equality” outcome. The Ds have completely thrown in with the communists, the socialists, the chaotic ANTIFA, and the 1%-ers like George Soros who fund all the anarchic, violent, anti-America street melees. If you like your doctor, you will not be able to keep your doctor, as the previous ANTIFA president demonstrated, despite his lies to the contrary. There is nothing here with this group or amalgamation of groups for the average American family trying to get by comfortably and live a simple, happy life.

However, there are plenty of Rs who are D-lite. Call them RINOs, GOPe, whatever, they are part of an established, elite political class who have elevated themselves above the broad interests of the citizen taxpayer. Their interests are narrowly economic and even more narrowly financial. Big corporations, the Koch Brothers, US senator Mitch McConnell’s big and financially rewarding ties to the Chinese government, the various guises of the Chamber of Commerce, etc.; all seeking to funnel as much financial gain into as few big pockets as possible. At the cost of Americans’ freedom now and future liberty.

Like the Ds, this GOPe group also tries to manipulate national policy for personal gain, with open borders and no checks on the el-cheapo labor force that comes with a huge cultural and school tax price tag. Obviously the GOPe has little in common with the interest of The People, either, though more economic freedom can be found here than with the Ds. Nevertheless, the GOPe RINOs are not really committed to defending citizen freedom and liberty.

Thus the demand for the Independent identity. The problem with the Independent Party is that it is frozen out of many states, where there is a bi-partisan death grip on electoral process. If there is one thing both Ds and Rs can agree on, it is that they and they two alone must control, if only occasionally share, political power and outcomes for everyone else.

This is why there is so much collusion and bi-partisan deal making in places like Pennsylvania, where our closed Primary artificially limits voter choice. Being an Independent in most places, like Pennsylvania, means one cannot really vote in a meaningful way in the primary election, arguably when votes matter most.

If the Republican Party of the 1860s was the vehicle for the great Abolitionist movement, much of that great spirit is now gone. Obviously. Oh yes, we have the congressional Freedom Caucus, a refreshing group of patriots and individualists. But they are largely outnumbered by the corporatists within their own party.

And never mind that the Ds demand their minorities aka modern-day slaves remain and vote on the Democrat Plantation, just like they did in the old days. And that everyone else fall in line with their autocratic control schemes. Or else.

I do not identify as a Democrat and probably never will again (to do so would be like gleefully standing by the road screaming “Heil Hitler” in 1930s Germany as the latest Democrat Socialist Messiah drove by), so trying to figure them out is a waste of time.

So, I am now reaching and looking farther back in time for a political identity, back to more philosophical times, to when big ideas had relevance to everyday lives. And in that past I find the old British Whig Party actually captures my current philosophical views.

The Whigs of the 1700s-1800s believed in spreading political power and decision-making to the citizenry as broadly as possible.

The Whigs believed in Abolitionism, the movement to abolish slavery. Plenty of economic and financial gain at stake there, so it was a truly principled stand in the meanest sense.

The Whigs believed in a parliamentary monarchy, which was radical at the time. Though the Magna Carta had been written and signed by the British king so many centuries before, its notions of freedom, representative government, and due process for the average citizen only took a few centuries to refine and percolate up and out to the point where the monarch’s absolute grip on power was actually, truly challenged by erstwhile representatives of The People.

That slow progress also involved a couple civil wars that were spiced nicely with religious feuding. Lots of heads rolling in the streets, families burning at the stake…what the Chinese call “exciting times.”

So given they had witnessed the great evil and cruelty carried out in the name of official religious control and power, the Whigs were naturally against the establishment of all religious tests for citizens, and against an official, established state religion. On this score they eventually lost, as Anglicanism is now the official state religion of Britain.

Similarly, Scotland has the Church of Scotland as its official place of worship. Not that either of these churches are very Christian nor pro-Western today. The Whigs correctly viewed official religions as being against the interests of the People, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Church of England’s official anti-West, anti-freedom do-gooder political meddling.

In short, Britain’s Whigs were non-conformists who believed in a third way: diffuse political power, as opposed to centralized power. They promoted economic freedom and individual liberty for all, including for the lowest slave.

 

 

 

British history and people may appear rather blase and boring to today’s casual reader, but rest assured it was nothing of the sort. An overabundance of violent civil wars resulted in the seemingly placid society one enjoyably visits today.

As a result, the Whig party was transcendent for almost two centuries. With its enlightened philosophical views came maximum freedom and opportunity for the greatest number of Britons, ever. Many Whig views found their way into the American Constitution.

Given the anti-citizen Uni-Party political establishment here in America, the weakness of the Independent Party, and my own Constitutionalist views, I am mighty tempted to join the 1700s Whigs. At least they stand for something real and valuable.

And what does it say that in 2018 we must now reach back to the early 1700s Britain to reconnect with our greatest individual rights and needs in 21-st century America?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feeling vindicated feels good

Like genuine apologies, vindication for having taken an unpopular but principled stand comes all too infrequently. And boy does it feel good.

Ten years ago, after an adulthood spent in politics of some sort or another, I finally became personally engaged in electoral politics.

In 2009, after the first six months of the disastrous Obama presidency AKA The Eight Years War Against The US Constitution, I decided to run against the local and then-incumbent Blue Dog Democrat congressman, Tim Holden. Holden had become a symbol of Obama and how radicalism was overthrowing the Democrat Party of old.

Just a handful of years before that, I had been the keynote speaker at Holden’s first and only debate with then-incumbent George Gekas, a fairly conservative Republican from Harrisburg.

After giving what I heard from many audience members was the best speech they had ever heard (no lie, no brag, and I did it in shorts and sandals), about my experience helping create the Flight 93 memorial, I then sat down next to that conservative Democrat and gave him advice on how to beat Gekas at that debate.

Here I was, an active Republican from a prominent local Republican family, sitting at the dais, next to the Democrat challenger of one of our family’s longest political friends, whom I had just publicly called “a formerly close family friend,” giving advice to Holden, which he effectively employed that day.

Holden went on to beat Gekas that Fall in a Republican-dominated congressional district, with a balance of pro-Life, pro-gun Democrats. It was Gekas’ seat to lose, and he did lose it.

Schuylkill County Sheriff Tim Holden represented the grass roots at that time, and he garnered an overwhelming number of Republican votes. Holden was a staunch pro-business, Second Amendment advocate and he earned his blue collar support in every other way, too.  He crushed Gekas.

What had made me turn against a long-time political ally and family friend, Congressman Gekas? Probably the same things that made so many other Republicans vote against him. He had become what today we would identify as an ossified establishment politician, a careerist who would show up to vote and to eat at every free lunch, and who would do very little else.

Gekas and I had met together earlier that year, and I had left his office seething with anger at how selfish and self-serving he had made himself. Where had the patriot gone? Where was the campaigning small-business owner, the Everyman who everyone could identify with, regardless of political party?

In today’s parlance, Gekas had gone DC Swamp, and as a result he had lost my support. Back then I would not have said it in those terms, but the bottom line was that he had made the seat all about him, and not his constituents or the principles that made America great, and which I had seen first-hand were under serious assault in Washington.

Fast forward a handful of years later, and I myself was itching to run against the then-incumbent congressman, Tim Holden, Democrat from Schuylkill County.

By then Holden’s party had become the majority, and Holden was voting with radical Nancy Pelosi 93% of the time. Not the 55/45% he had done previously.

So much for the independent-minded Blue Dog Democrat! Holden had gone DC Swamp, too, and the region was on fire to get rid of him.

In 2009 I declared myself a candidate for US Congress and ended up running in a four-way primary race. At the end of the race our campaign did not win, but we finished very strongly third (with the two top vote-getters within a few hundred votes of one another). A lot of politicos and lobbyists complimented our grass roots campaign. The highlight of that campaign was getting over 50% of the vote in that four-way race in Perry County, one of five counties in that congressional district. Perry County was then, and is now, symbolic of the American heartland, so getting the majority of their votes made me feel all-American forever.

But along the way in that race I had received some harsh words, too. Some from old friends or erstwhile political allies, admonishing me for running against the GOP-picked favorite (he was an elected official and went on to lose to Holden in what many insiders even today are convinced was a thrown race).

I had written to one of them, working as a high level appointee in DC at the time, that the grass roots was “on fire” and there was a sense of “rebellion in the air.” A few more emails exchanged between us, and I don’t think he “got it” or frankly even cared that the grass roots voters were rebelling against the ossified, elitist, self-serving political class.

This was right as what was to become the Tea Party was forming, and it all began right here in Central Pennsylvania. Berks County and Lebanon County, to be precise. We did not know what we were doing then, except that we were challenging that entrenched, deaf, self-serving political elite class that depended upon us for votes, but who would then sell us out when it came to giving in on quintessentially American principles to an increasingly radical Democrat Party.

And now here we are, mid-2018, and a huge wave of grass roots, stridently anti-establishment, pro-citizen, pro-taxpayer, pro-America-as-founded candidates are winning primary elections all over America.

And the GOPe is reeling.

Sure, they got Mittens Romney as the next US Senator in Utah, and they got a Democrat elected in Alabama over conservative Roy Moore. The GOPe was bound to win one or two. But they are not winning like they used to win ten years ago. A political revolution is taking place.

Having been at the bleeding edge of that movement\ revolution ten years ago and again and again as a state senate candidate nose-to-nose with the state GOP, and having suffered personally for it, and then partially vindicated by the PA Supreme Court in a landmark case that tossed the GOP gerrymandering plan because of my state senate district and restored me and our campaign to my original state senate district, it now feels good to be vindicated by the recent electoral successes of our ideological successors and soul mates across America.

After the past month, it turns out what at one time seemed like a very few of us are not alone in yearning for a return to the basic American values and principles that allowed for the greatest, broadest diversity of success, freedom, and opportunity the planet has ever seen. The American People are largely behind us, and seemingly increasingly so by the week.

Along with thousands of other risk-takers across America who also made sometimes costly and painful personal sacrifices to run on principle against an unprincipled bi-partisan political establishment early on, I know now that I, we, are now all vindicated. Our fellow Americans are proving this by voting for their own true interests (as opposed to the selfish interests of corporations, The Koch Brothers, unions, political parties, illegal immigrants, economic immigrants, violent jihadist immigrants, socialists, etc), and electing good people who best represent those all-America interests and values.

And that feels good.

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.

Vote for the Boy Scouts tomorrow

While the Boy Scouts are not actually running for office in tomorrow’s primary election, the principles of that venerable American institution are certainly being voted on.

Voted on in the sense that there are candidates who are go-along get-along types, for whom holding elected office is a career, a business opportunity, an ego boost (let’s call all these types “swamp dwellers”).

And then there are candidates for whom holding elected office is a sacred duty of service to one’s fellow citizens. These candidates stand on the bedrock principles that founded America and which make it great. These principles are bound up in the fabric of our institutions, like the Boy Scouts, which taught those values and ideas (self-reliance, accountability, community).

Last week about eight people on the national board of the Boy Scouts of America voted once again to give in to extremist demands aimed at gutting everything the Boy Scouts stand for.

This time this small handful of people voted to change the name of the Boy Scouts to just “Scouts,” paving the way for an undefined, politically correct, genderless soup standing for vague good feelings. Maybe. At the cost of boyhood.

As one might expect, those Americans with the greatest connection to the Boy Scouts as founded have now begun to officially withdraw from the “new” organization. The Mormons were right up front in their abandonment of the sinking ship. Good for them. My own son just found out about it last night. After seven happy years in the Boy Scouts, he said “I do not want to do this, I do not want to participate in this. This is not what I signed up for.”

How incredibly painful.

The gutting of the Boy Scouts is symbolic of the leftist ailment we are experiencing across America and the liberal civil war being forced upon all normal and good Americans.

Those representatives who are supposed to be on the front line, defending us from constant assaults, are actually AWOL or worse, whether they are elected in politics or sitting on non-profit boards.

Across America we see people get elected to office, and they have no intention of doing anything except holding that office. Or worse, using it for self-enrichment or cultural destruction. What is happening on the Boy Scouts board is exactly what is happening across America.

Tomorrow I will be working a voting poll, helping two candidates I like, for the simple reason I believe they are tough enough to stop our bleeding, stop our cultural deflation, good enough to use public office for public benefit. They are Paul Mango and Andrew Lewis.

Locally, here is who I will be or would be voting for:

Paul Mango for governor. Paul is a good guy, a US Army veteran, rated more conservative than his two opponents. Laura Ellsworth is rated as “Liberal,” and moderate state senator Scott Wagner has become the very swamp creature he said he was against.

Peg Luksik for Lieutenant Governor.

Andrew Lewis for state house. Andrew is a fine young man, a US Army veteran, with strong character. His opponent, liberal Adam Klein, is the very essence of the political establishment swamp destroying Pennsylvanians’ hopes, dreams, and rightful expectations.

Either George Halcovage or Scott Uehlinger for Congress, over Dan Meuser. Dan has so many issues, some of which have been listed on this blog, his candidacy is an example of why diligent citizen action is required to hold on to our government. Meuser is DC swamp through and through.

Both Lou Barletta and Jim Christiana are rated as “somewhat conservative,” and neither one impresses very much through some particular distinction. On the one hand, Barletta has earned a good name for himself on illegal immigration (i.e. protecting US taxpayers’ and citizens’ rights), while Christiana is a young go-getter. Either one will be superior to political careerist disaster Bob Casey.

Tomorrow, while I am voting for and supporting particular candidates as a volunteer poll watcher, I am inwardly doing it for the old Boy Scouts and everything they stood for.

I want my America back. I want the old-fashioned values  on which America was founded. I want the Boy Scouts back. Voting for these people above helps us move Pennsylvania and America in that positive direction.

 

Laura Ellsworth for Governor?

Attorney Laura Ellsworth is running for governor of Pennsylvania.

I have heard her speak at length, and heard her debate, and she is impressive. She is the kind of person I would want representing me as a lawyer: Articulate, earnest, knowledgeable.

She would also make an interesting college professor, or a policy think tank analyst.

But is she right for governor of Pennsylvania? As a Republican?

Polls by everyone – Democrats, Republicans, independent research firms, including your aunt and your auto mechanic, show Ellsworth getting somewhere between five hundred votes and five percent of the primary vote on May 15th.

Not nearly enough to win by any way possible. Mango is barely trailing Wagner by a percent or two, statistically tied.

Laura Ellsworth is as liberal policy-wise as her choice for US president in 2016, John Kasich, who she joyfully announced she wrote in on her November 2016 ballot (i.e. she did not vote for Trump).

She is big on gun confiscation from law-abiding citizens, one of those big government elitist feel-good actions that has zero relationship to crime reduction and lots of conflict with the constitution.

She has the foolish America-is-too-big-to-fail attitude toward illegal immigration, which she does not oppose.

She is in lock-step with the teacher’s unions on a variety of policies, not the least of which is continuing Pennsylvania’s broken and punitive property tax system that leaves about ten thousand elderly grandmas kicked out of their own homes every year to pay some teacher’s gold-plated pension.

None of these are conservative policy positions.

And Ellsworth refuses to talk substantively about the bigger political and cultural context, the larger world surrounding Pennsylvania. Such as the criminalization of policy differences through phony investigations as the Democrat Party’s new approach to losing elections (which is what the Communists successfully did in Europe). Such as the implications of the illegal, unconstitutional Mueller witch hunt. It is as if Ellsworth lives in a Western Pennsylvania bubble full of cool ideas.

This is hardly the stuff a worthy, sturdy governor is made of.

Then again, she has now been endorsed by former governor Tom Corbett, one of the modern era’s most failed, incompetent, though ethical, governors.

Because of his grossly negligent political incompetence and 40-grit sandpaper communication style, Corbett was soundly rejected by his own Republican voters in his quest for a second term in 2014. So accepting his blessing to run for governor is like lighting yourself on fire and then hoping someone nearby has a fire extinguisher.

By the obvious measure of the Republican electorate’s mood, Ellsworth is willfully tilting at windmills here. She is not a serious candidate.

Yesterday I had an illuminating conversation about this governor’s race with a long-time woman friend. She is a lawyer and a lobbyist, smart as hell, articulate, principled and tough. She was a Paul Mango supporter.

She said that watching Paul Mango and Scott Wagner duke it out with negative ads was like watching two school boys fighting at recess, with all the other students standing around yelling, and she doesn’t like it.

So she is going to vote for Ellsworth, as a protest.

When I pointed out that voting for Ellsworth is literally throwing away your vote, and most likely helping Scott Wagner get elected, she sighed deeply.

“I know. I feel like I can’t win here.”

I don’t think my friend is alone. Most older women do not like conflict, especially this kind of warfare going on between Mango and Wagner.

With about 40% of the likely Republican voters still uncommitted to any candidate here, there might be a lot more women voters like my friend than we expect.

Tell you what, as a conservative Republican voter for a long, long time, I have never been in this position before. It is a bittersweet feeling.

Never before have I seen a situation where the third candidate made it likely that the most explosive, confrontational, wrecking-ball candidate would get elected. But that is what is likely happening here.

If enough people like my friend vote for Ellsworth, then Ellsworth will end up taking away just enough votes from Mango to help Wagner win.

While I am supporting Mango, the fact is that Scott Wagner will be better on most policies than current governor Tom Wolf. And a lot, lot more destructive of the political establishment than Mango will ever be. Usually, it is the other way around in three-way elections, where the most liberal establishment candidate gets elected due to the presence of the third candidate.

So once again, politics makes strange bedfellows and it is full of irony. Laura Ellsworth is such a liberal candidate that her candidacy will cause the most confrontational, anti-liberal, anti-establishment candidate to get elected to governor. You could not write a political thriller more complicated and unlikely than this.

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.

Attack of the pussy weasels

Well, the Pennsylvania Grand Ol’ Party has done it again.

The PA GOP pussy weasels really knocked it outta the park this time, with their latest politicized voting map. As usual, this map protects PA GOP favorite candidates, spineless jellyfish all, and removes or undermines candidates threatening those favorites.

Gerrymandering seems to be the PA GOP’s best skill, their highest and best use, because Lord knows these guys can’t fight. They cannot take liberals head-on, nor can they allow conservatives to have a shot at talking to the voters. God forbid, the empty suit establishment hacks might lose!

And this is why the PA GOP is made of pussy weasels. They are pussies, wimps of the worst sort, not fighters or brawlers, and they are weasels, sneaky, devious, conniving little men. Pathetic excuses for men. Few of these guys have it in them to be men, to act like men.

Pussy weasels. Cheaters.

Though the GOP is supposed to be the “hawks,” with these kinds of weazly weaklings running things, it is no wonder America is in so much trouble.

For those who don’t know, gerrymandering is setting up voting districts to favor a particular political party for candidate. It is how you protect your hold on political power without having to actually compete for it, or allow your opponents (within and without the party) to challenge you in a meaningful way.

Granted, the Democrats will do the same thing, given the same opportunity. But what is especially frustrating about the PA GOP is how aggressively and openly they target independent-minded conservatives for elimination from consideration.

Look at this redistricting map. This is the voting district map the Pennsylvania legislature (Republican dominated) sent to the governor last Friday, as a result of the last one being thrown out by the PA Supreme Court.

 By the US Constitution, all US voting maps are supposed to be compact. That means counties are supposed to be held together as much as possible, communities are held together, and regional cultures are supposed to be held together. Political districts are supposed to be as compact as possible, not spread all over the landscape.

Here we can see several political districts that are obviously all over the landscape. Zig-zagging their way from the Poconos to Central PA. Or gutting certain counties. Or  targeting specific candidates in ongoing political races right now.

Note the three red circles.

See what is in them, the little municipalities? These are cut-outs, not where counties have been gutted, but where specific candidates live and have been targeted for removal from current ongoing races. Not a whole lot of them on this map, and believe me, these three are significant.

These three red circles are classic targeting by the PA GOP establishment of conservatives who the pussy weasels believe are a threat to their spineless, principle-free, money-oriented, power-based political club.

The red circle on the upper right is where candidate Joe Peters lives. Peters is an awesome candidate for the US Congress, and he was going to cost GOP establishment hack Dan Meuser the race, because Meuser lives just over the line from where Peters lives. Peters was going to pull votes from the same community, the same region, the same culture, which would make it oh, so hard for Little Danny Meuser to just win the danged seat.

Well, the new map has Meuser in, and Peters out.

And two other active candidates for the same seat are now also out in this map, Steve Bloom in Cumberland County and Andrew Shektor in Columbia County.

Race for US Congress now looking much better for Meuser, and he didn’t even have to go make a speech or go to a debate!

Now let’s go to the middle red circle. Guess who lives there? Another candidate in the same congressional race Meuser is in!

His name is Andrew Lewis, another awesome candidate for the same congressional seat as Meuser and Peters. Lewis is popular in this vote-heavy Dauphin County, and also in the adjoining ultra-conservative Perry County, which is now suddenly and totally out of the newly redrawn district.

This is where gutting the county also comes into play. As one might expect of the county seat of political power in Pennsylvania, Dauphin County holds a lot of political activists, including yours truly. By halving Dauphin County, the county becomes much less of a political base for the enterprising would-be candidate, as primary voters everywhere vote first and foremost for candidates from their same county.

So the PA GOP pussy weasels killed two birds with one stone here. They took away Lewis’s voter base, and also undermined the potential future opportunities of anyone else from Dauphin County.

So Meuser gets to stay in the redrawn district, his one toughest opponent (Peters) has now been completely removed, two others were removed, and the other tough opponent (Lewis) completely undermined. Odds are looking good!

Pretty nice work for a pussy weasel, right?

See, a real man would be embarrassed to have other people do all of this for him, to pretty much guarantee him a seat in Congress. A real man would want to get out and compete, be challenged, and stand up for his beliefs. Like a man.

But not here. Here we have pussy weasels, like Meuser.

And that last red circle, up on the left. See that? Guess why that remote little outpost of super rural Pennsylvania is mysteriously cut out from the enormous political district surrounding it?

If you guessed that it is because a political activist lives there, you would be CORRECT.

We are talking about an area there in northwest Lycoming County that has more bears than people, and yet, the PA GOP pussy weasels can’t stand the thought that the guy up there might actually run for office, and have a chance to spread his charismatic message of conservativism. Why then, the pussy weasels would not know what to do. Their power might be threatened!

God forbid.

One hopes that Governor Wolf, no big winner himself, refuses to sign this monstrosity, and that it then goes to the PA Supreme Court.

We deserve a government Of the People, By the People, and For the People.

Not a government of, by, and for pussy weasels.

PA 11th Congressional District race: Joe Peters or Andrew Lewis

Pennsylvania’s 11th congressional district stretches from well southeast of the southcentral PA capital city of Harrisburg to the farthest reaches of northeastern PA, near the New York border. It is one of those crazily gerrymandered districts created to protect a certain congressman, a certain party. You have to try really hard to create a political district this convoluted, and it is as twisted as the power-hungry thinking that went into it.

I know, because according to the PA Supreme Court, I was the primary victim of the gerrymandering that created the 2012 Pennsylvania state political district map, released at the same time as the congressional map.

Apparently my then-candidacy (as an independent-minded conservative) for the 15th state senate district was a threat to the political establishment (self-serving careerists surrounded by a constellation of special interest groups feasting upon the taxpayer host body), and so they placed my Harrisburg home in a tiny political pocket. Our home was barely in one congressional district that is mostly based in Adams County to the south (Gettysburg). It was just one small part of Dauphin County mixed in with much larger portions of other counties, and we were also suddenly a couple blocks away from the 15th state senate district.

The gerrymandering was announced just as our 2012 campaign got under way.

The PA state Supreme Court threw out the state district map, calling the area around our home “an iron cross…” designed to exclude someone from participating in the political process. But the court kept the congressional map, which is being challenged now.

So that is where we got these crazy district lines, and it is how we now have a four-way contest to replace outgoing Congressman Lou Barletta.

Candidates who have officially announced are Joe Peters, Andrew Lewis, Steve Bloom, and Dan Meuser. Their home bases stretch from the farthest reaches of southcentral to far northeastern PA.

I know all of these guys, and I would like to share some thoughts with you about their candidacy.

Let’s start with Joe Peters.

Joe has the most impressive resume of any of the candidates here. He has been a successful professional crimefighter, and a wonderful political outsider. Joe is the stuff of legend, a tough cop surrounded by bad guys, but always doing the right thing.

Peters is the Serpico of political candidates.

A former cop and prosecutor who put away really bad men in jail, Joe took real risks, and earned real enemies. He has been tested many times over many decades, and has proven uncorruptible.

So naturally, Joe has earned the enmity and fear of politically powerful shadows now supporting the other candidate from his region, Dan Meuser.

We would be lucky to have Joe Peters in Congress, though I fear he lacks the funds to get his message and impressive personality out to the voters. When he ran for PA Attorney General a few years ago, I gladly, even eagerly voted for him. Really impressive guy. Total underdog.

Then we have Andrew Lewis.

After more or less forcing me out of the last primary race for the 15th state senate district (2016), by undercutting my base of support in Perry County, Andrew nonetheless earned my endorsement in his subsequent man-to-man primary run against John DiSanto, our current state senator, who thankfully went on to defeat incumbent Rob Teplitz (a Marxist who was outstanding at constituent services).

What I liked about Andrew then is probably his biggest weakness now, and that is his youth.

Andrew must be the most energetic candidate to ever run for any office. He is physically tough, tall, good looking, earnest, religious, conservative, and a combat veteran of the US Army operations in Iraq. And boy is he positive. This kid has the best demeanor and personality you are likely to meet in your lifetime. He is from a rural farming background, salt of the earth family, smart as hell, and highly educated. He has an impressive resume by any standard, and especially for someone so young.

People asked me in 2016 why I endorsed the guy who stole my dream of serving in the state senate. My answer was that Andrew was a really impressive young man, the kind of person America needs in politics and in leadership roles. I stand by that now, and if for some reason you can’t vote for Joe Peters, Andrew Lewis is your  man. You cannot go wrong voting for Andrew, who has probably the best geographic reach (political base, or likely voters) of all the candidates.

Then we have Steve Bloom, a sitting state representative from Cumberland County.

There is nothing negative anyone anywhere can say about Steve Bloom. And there is a long, long list of very positive things about him.

And that is the problem here.

Steve, why are you in this congressional race?  You are needed in the PA State House of Representatives, where you already serve with great distinction! You are WAY too good to lose from the state house.

Steve has worked hard and smart in the state house. He has amazingly, surprisingly worked his way up into junior leadership. He is on the cusp of breaking into actual leadership, which is amazing because he is a straight-talking, no BS conservative. Steve is not a weasel, he is a force for good…in the PA State House. The fact that he is moving up is cause for celebration.

Steve is very conservative, religious, and as pure as the driven snow. Steve is exactly what we need in politics, and in fact he already IS in politics. Now that he is in the state house, it would be nice to keep him there. If you vote for Steve Bloom in the upcoming primary, no one can fault you. But the fear is that Steve’s southcentral PA base is too small for him to leverage into winning this congressional seat, and that voting for him will divide up the vote, resulting in the worst possible outcome in this race…

Dan Meuser.

If you have something positive to say about Dan Meuser, would you please contact me directly?

Honestly, if you have something truthfully good to say about him, I will publish it here, unfiltered. No lie.

Dan is from the same northeastern coal country that Joe Peters is from, and he has played the strangest role in politics for a long time.

Dan has the distinction of having blown the hugest wad of cash on a losing primary race of anyone in living history. About ten years ago he ran against Chris Hackett, a religious hillbilly who no one had ever heard of.

And Dan lost.

He didn’t just lose, he lost spectacularly, hugely, phenomenally. Dan spent literally millions of dollars on a primary race, and lost to a guy who spent, what, a hundred thousand dollars? Maybe a bit more? [UPDATE May 1, 2018: Proving that memory can be a fragile thing, campaign finance records that I looked at today show that Hackett spent well over $100,000 on his campaign against Dan Meuser. It is hard to tell exactly how much both candidates spent, but Meuser’s campaign was over a million bucks, and Hackett’s may have been right behind that. What I recalled was Hackett’s excellent grass roots ground game]

What Dan lacked in charisma and character, he made up for with money. He just kept tossing that cash around, trying to buy votes that never materialized. When the dust settled, in a two-person primary race, mind you, Hackett had crushed him with his folksy man-on-the-street candidacy. The empty suits lost to the citizen revolt that became known within a year as the Tea Party.

Dan Meuser eventually served in the Tom Corbett administration as Secretary of Revenue, the Mister Moneybags of PA government.

The Corbett administration was the worst run administration in modern Pennsylvania history.

A tone deaf governor with zero loyalty for those who put him there, and a taste for private flash, Corbett was surrounded by an army of self-directed, self-interested political hacks embodying the very worst of political patronage. God it was a freaking disaster, and it brings me no happiness to write it here.

I worked hard to get Corbett elected, very hard, and I served on the transition team, only to sit back and watch in slack-jawed amazement as the entire enterprise slo-mo crashed and burned after it was in place. Like a bad dream.

How many people went into the governor’s office, pleading for Corbett to take control and right the ship of state…it was like a nightmare, where your hand is on the wheel, and you keep turning it, but your car heads over the cliff.

Anyhow, if you are like me and four years ago you said “thankfully that pain is behind us” about the departing Corbett Administration, well, Dan Meuser is here to revisit that pain upon us, once again, but this time as a congressman.

As Secretary of Revenue in the Corbett administration, Meuser oversaw, masterminded, and approved the largest state government sexual harassment settlement in Pennsylvania history. And it may be the largest state government sexual harassment settlement in the country’s history.

You understand, this is nothing to brag about. This settlement was probably unnecessary and in any event, it was a colossal waste of limited taxpayer money. At a time of tight budgets, this is no way to spend The People’s money. At a time of flush budgets, it is going to be the butt of late night comedy jokes, because it is bad policy but at least humorously so.

And speaking of The People’s money, do you know another fantastically bad public policy idea Meuser implemented from his perch in state government? He put the squeeze on Pennsylvania businesses, like the Mob would do to extract cash from innocent people.

We PA business owners, great and small, all received these ridiculous notices from Meuser’s Dept. of Revenue saying “Prove to us that you don’t owe this tax money below, and while you are mulling that over, pay this bill for what we think, but cannot prove, that you owe to state government.”

Meuser’s assault on PA businesses for fast cash to prop up bloated state government spending was so shocking that whatever bit of good will the Corbett Administration had left, was squeezed out of his remaining voting base. Nearly 100% of these phony tax bills ended up resulting in zero owed, but it was the kind of expensive and anxiety-inducing government red tape we expect from liberals. Not from business people. With people like Meuser in senior positions pulling these kinds of cheap stunts, it was  ever harder to see Corbett as a pro-business Republican.

And this is the GOOD stuff about Dan.

Believe me, there is plenty more bad stuff. Like, recall the politically powerful shadows pulling his puppet strings mentioned above. He is the stultified establishment candidate. Good grief, aren’t we so beyond that now? Most Republican voters now know how failed that is, a party inward looking, without direction, barely distinguishable from the Democrats.

Dan Meuser is the last person Pennsylvanians need in office. He is representative of everything bad about politics. You cannot vote for him. You just cannot. That is a terrible choice. My gosh, you have three other good candidates to vote for here, and if you really want one of the good guys to win, you will vote for Joe Peters or Andrew Lewis.

Voting for Dan Meuser is voting for an empty suit with no principles, with a history of proven failure on one of the seminal issues of our time, sexual harassment.

Voting for Steve Bloom is effectively dividing up the good-guy vote and pretty much ensuring that Dan Meuser wins. We need Steve to stay in the PA House of Reps. Stay there, Steve, stay! Not voting for Steve Bloom is actually helping Steve stay right where we need him.

Voting for Joe Peters or Andrew Lewis is what you want if you want an outstanding congressman. You cannot go wrong with either one.

 

 

Some thoughts on the Alabama special election

Judge Roy Moore has probably lost the special election for the vacant US Senate seat in Alabama by just a couple thousand votes.

What this result means to me, and I think to a lot of others who share my values and way of seeing things, is the following:

  1. Moore’s big “crime” was to be a conservative Christian Constitutionalist who bucked the bipartisan big government UniParty, and who openly challenged US Senate leader Mitch “The Squish” McConnell.
  2. Moore’s unwillingness to go along with the GOP’s careful bipartisan management of America’s slow motion death spiral was a direct challenge and affront to the GOP establishment’s grip on power.
  3. This “crime” made Moore a big target, and all through his tough primary election he faced tens of millions of dollars of negative attack ads by, who else, the GOP establishment, including incredible statements by McConnell (and other Republicans) that he’d prefer a liberal Democrat in that seat over an independent-minded conservative Republican like Moore.
  4. Once into the general election against super leftist Democrat Doug Jones, lo and behold!, allegations of sexual impropriety suddenly emerge against Moore. From forty years ago. Surprise! By a couple women who had actual details and another five who basically said he asked them to date him. The media specializes in these assassinations against Republicans and conservatives, and it is a now predictable cycle.

The Washington Post made it a cause célèbre to beat Moore, if not outright destroy his character, so the unproven, empty allegations were repeated and repeated and repeated as if they were fact. When people outside the establishment media began to dig into these “allegations,” one woman’s claims immediately failed under scrutiny. Her stated facts and timeline changed constantly, the other people in the story said she was lying, that she never worked in the places she said she worked, and so on. She appeared to be a political shill with an axe to grind or a hankering for media attention.

The one other woman actually sounded credible, but the bottom line was when she and Moore were alone, and he busted a move on her, she declined and he then took her right home. The fact that she was fourteen at the time adds a big Ooh Icky Gross factor to normal people today, but forty years ago she was of the age of consent in Alabama. Hey, I’m a Yankee, so don’t ask me about that. Bottom line for Moore was that he was operating inside the boundaries, not outside. With one woman; not five or seven or nine.

  1. Moore faced the combined power of both the Democrat and Republican parties, and their collective interest groups. He faced the combined power of the entire establishment media. He had on his side political activist Steve Bannon and some independent-minded conservatives from around America. Against this incredible wave of hate, lies, false vilification, and tens of millions of dollars of negative attack ads, it is amazing that Moore actually came so close to winning.
  2. The take-away from this election result is that the American People now openly face a bipartisan UniParty that believes in all-powerful big government, increasingly limited individual liberty and freedom, mass illegal immigration and cultural conversion (not cultural assimilation), and the fundamental changing of America from a Constitutional Republic to….some sort of European social democracy.

While the Democrat Party has since Obama’s election openly embraced socialism, communism, and national suicide, the Republican Party has quietly hidden its agenda. Over Obama’s eight year reign of terror, the GOP made all sorts of symbolic gestures, but it never fought him. Moore’s kind of special elections have really tested the GOP, and they have showed their hand: They are Democrat Lite.

For the GOP it is not a question of whether or not America will become a socialist dystopia, but simply when. There is no fight left in the GOP, at least not against socialism and national suicide. Instead, the GOP saves its fight for opposing independents and conservatives who threaten its hold on whatever power it can carve out for itself in its power-sharing arrangement with the Democrats. The GOP party functionaries are like little bureaucrats, ready to move into whatever positions of political and government power are handed to them. The GOP and its functionaries are not patriots, they are not on the side of The People. They are our enemy, not our friend.

  1. So, for me it means more resolve to stand and fight for America, the America as it was envisioned in 1776 and constituted in 1787. Wherever that takes me. I can also easily say this: If I lived in a state with an open primary, I would become a registered Independent. The Republican Party left me, or rather has kicked me and people like me aside. Duly noted.