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Interesting PA 15th district state senate race

Now that the Super Tuesday primary election is over, which Our Lord and Savior President Donald Trump completely dominated in a historic crushing nationwide landslide,  Pennsylvania has only another six weeks of national irrelevance to go until our primary election on April 23rd. Which makes Pennsylvania less than unimportant in the grand scheme of national politics, but allows us to focus on some interesting local races.

The election race that grabs my interest the most is for the 15th state senate district here in central PA, centered on Harrisburg City. This is a senate district I ran in one-and-a-half times. First in 2012, which entailed a real head-butting with the GOPe, and in which I did well but did not win. The second time I ran was 2015-2016, and I was the first candidate out of the gate. Color me surprised when another candidate announced (John DiSanto), quite establishment with the charisma of an old shoe, and who was backed by the same acidly anti-establishment state senator I had worked hard to elect in York County (Scott Wagner).

Political races are often weird, and in Spring 2015 I was just getting with the weirdness of facing off against people whom I had worked hard to elect, and who had no explanation for why they were opposing me, when the race got more complicated.

Enter out of the clear blue yonder a very young and very ambitious guy (Andrew Lewis), just moved back to Pennsylvania and fresh from military intelligence work in Washington, DC (now that MAGA knows how corrupt and evil our own American intelligence establishment is, one must wonder if this connection will hurt Andrew Lewis in his future political ambitions). With no local work or volunteer history, other than his family lived in both Juniata and Perry counties, Andrew Lewis became the alternative conservative candidate to me. Good looking and bright, Andrew made a fine candidate. His presence in the race bit into my rural support, and the fact that he, too, was financially supported by Scott Wagner bit deeper into my feelings about Scott Wagner and the people working for and with him.

What the heck did Scott Wagner have against little old me?

My participation in the race came to an abrupt end in late November, 2015, as I stepped up onto a boulder high on a mountain while bear hunting, and awkwardly fell off. My left knee was the knee that had not been previously operated on, and I had babied it for thirty years. The two back-to-back surgeries required to fix its resulting bad tears in the cartilage and frayed ligaments meant I could barely walk. And if there was one advantage I had it was my good door-to-door effort that had paid off before.

Not being able to walk door to door, I had no way of really running a competitive three-way race, and so I bowed out in December. And never a sore loser, I endorsed the same monkey-wrenching Andrew Lewis as the superior of the two candidates.

John DiSanto won that springtime primary election and went on to defeat the incumbent Democrat in the Fall of 2016. After eight years of voting reliably Republican present, but with no distinguishing leadership on issues like election integrity or the state system of education, DiSanto is now giving way to the heavily gerrymandered new senate district.

Our new 15th district map was created by the PA Dems to favor forever incumbent PA House member Patty Kim, a terribly undistinguished, sleep-walking, cookie cutter Marxist Democrat who is tired of not having to run for re-election every two years and now desires to not have to run for re-election every four years.

So we know who the Democrat candidate will be: Patty Kim.

On the GOP side we have two candidates, and this is what I find so interesting about this race. One candidate is an outsider, a nice man named Ken Stambaugh.

Local politicos will recognize the Stambaugh name because so many people from this large and engaged family are involved in politics across three counties here. Having appreciated the opportunity to speak at length with Ken Stambaugh, and having read his near-daily campaign trail updates, I come away with the impression of a good guy with good intentions, and no policy experience or even a desire for good policy, and not a lot of charisma. That he was recruited by incumbent state senator John DiSanto for the Fall suicide run against Marxist Patty Kim seems doubly lost on Ken.

That Ken was endorsed by the Dauphin County GOP is not lost on me or other conservative grass roots activists who abhor party meddling in primary races. Candidates today who tout their party endorsement in a primary race have a tin ear, or just don’t care about the voters.

Sometimes not being “political” can work well to a person’s advantage, and in this case, I think Ken Stambaugh probably sleeps well each night not knowing what politicos know. Let’s keep this a secret, because Ken’s earnestness is refreshing. He means well, which is to his credit.

Out of the blue, longtime politico, former Dauphin County commissioner, and newly elected Dauphin County treasurer, Nick DiFrancesco, has also decided to run for this same state senate seat.

Two weeks ago, the Lower Paxton Township Republicans issued a statement, calling on Nick to drop out of the race.

I told everyone Nick would not take the treasurer position seriously,” said one frustrated politico.

You crazy man,” I wrote to Nick. After all, having worked so hard to re-ingratiate himself with the Dauphin County GOP and barely win the county treasurer seat last November, to now run against the party takes real Italian-style chutzpah. Or too much ambition. Or balls. Or leadership….

However Nick’s thumb-in-the-eye and kick-in-the-shins entry into this race is characterized, Nick is at the opposite end of the politico spectrum from nice guy candidate Ken Stambaugh.

Nick DiFrancesco is very experienced with running for office and all of the “retail politics” this includes, such as money grubbing and networking. He also has Dauphin County name recognition, which always goes a long way in a primary race. Nick may be as establishment as a Republican can get, but to run against the party establishment is about as anti-establishment as it gets. Intriguing!

Which raises the question of whether Nick DiFrancesco has a political suicide urge, is addicted to running for office, or does he think he can really win against Patty Kim? I think Nick believes he can win against Patty Kim in the Fall. He says so, and I believe him.

The entire 15th senate district R vs D race in the Fall comes down to the R candidate reaching deeply into the Harrisburg City black community, and getting their votes. Which with the right candidate can be done. After all, decades of Democrat Party rule has left Harrisburg City and its majority black citizens bankrupted and left behind. Like pretty much every other Democrat-run city in America, it should be noted.

American blacks are not stupid, they are incredibly loyal (why blacks identify with the party of Slavery, the Democrats, and not the party of Abolition, the Republicans is a case of effective marketing vs. no marketing at all). They are smart enough to begin asking what the hell have they been loyal to and loyal for. The American black community is beginning to wake up to the fact that white liberal Democrats like Patty Kim are the most racist people on Planet Earth, and that repeatedly voting for them and their guaranteed failure and intergenerational poverty is stupid. And no, I don’t think candidate Alvin Q. Taylor has what it takes to lead, sorry, buddy.

Nick DiFrancesco should play Malcolm X’s “Political Chump” speech all over Allison Hill and Uptown Harrisburg, and lead Dauphin County in a political revolution that all of America needs. If there is one candidate who can do this, who has the balls to try it, to show all the scared Whiteys huddled up in their country clubs that Black people are very engaging and very interested in what candidates have to say, it is Nick.

In this primary race, and in the Fall race, I think Nick DiFrancesco has all of the advantages.

 

What GOP debate tonight?

Apparently there is a debate tonight among about seven Republican candidates for the GOP nomination for president. Primary election in the spring, winner will run against Joe Biden in November 2024. Biggest, most important election of your lifetime, because it determines whether or not America stays a constitutional republic, or if the federal administrative state takes over and with its allies in congress and the judiciary, eliminates the Bill of Rights and turns every American into a serf, a slave, a peasant.

So there is this debate tonight. The candidates are Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie, maybe Mike Pence and then some others I can’t remember. And I don’t need to remember who the other candidates are, because I don’t need to know who any of the candidates are tonight. This debate tonight is useless, pointless, meaningless. Governor Noem of South Dakota said it best a couple months ago: “Why run if you can’t win?”

She meant that all these candidates running is futile, because voter support for President Donald Trump is overwhelming. Trump is ahead of his closest competitor by somewhere between 25-30%. That’s not even close. And the more that Trump is turned into a Jesus martyr figure by the Democrat Party’s persecution, with its RINO helpers, the higher his voter support becomes. No one likes a cheater, and everyone sees that what is happening to Trump is simple cheating the system to try to hurt one guy.

And everyone knows if this lawless persecution can happen to Trump, then it can happen to any of us – you, me, even if we are absolutely innocent. Voters see that we are in a tug-of-war with the federal government and its state allies for who is going to retain power in America – We, The People or them, the lawless, unaccountable bureaucrats, and Trump is the guy in the middle being pulled back and forth. Everything else is a sideshow, maybe not unimportant, but much less important than getting Trump over the finish line in November 2024.

So like how most voters are thinking right now, I just don’t care about these other candidates. Nikki Haley? She’s a career RINO politician, with about as much backbone as a softy Eeyore donkey doll. Chris Christie? Professional politician who has done very little actually useful for Americans, and who is just hanging around to keep his name alive in the public’s mind, trying to be a darling of the Democrat establishment media. Mike Pence? He is hated by the Republican Party base because he sold out America to satisfy the Washington, DC, Beltway bandits in 2021. Ron DeSantis? He is surrounded and funded by the biggest RINOs in America. Yes, DeSantis has done a good job in Florida, but he is a young man in a big hurry to be a career politician like Chris Christie, barf, gag, puke. DeSantis needs to stay in Florida and make sure that the successes for freedom there stay in place. Show Americans he has what it takes to stay on top of the game, not game the political system to try to get artificially quickly to the top. And so on. There are no really impressive candidates talking tonight; even though Vivek Ramaswamy says a lot of good things Americans want to hear, his recent past shows he is very liberal on a lot of issues. We don’t need any more liberal Republicans like him or Hutchinson. Been there, done that, been unhappy with the outcome. We need advocates for America in office, not these ubiquitous get-rich-quick “Slightly Smaller Government Than The Democrats” RINOs.

So yeah, the establishment Republicans are all atwitter amongst themselves about the GOP primary debate tonight. Why wouldn’t they be all excited about it? They are establishment Republicans, RINOs, whose allegiance is to the Uniparty, not to America, or to you or me or the Constitution. Likewise for the establishment media and for the Conservative, Inc. media.

So, want to waste your time watching a bunch of has-been career politicians waste their time and yours on TV tonight? Go ahead and watch the debate tonight. Knock yourself out. Make a bigger deal about it than it really is. There is only one outcome that is likely in the Spring, and that is Donald Trump winning the primary election. My attention now and tonight is focused on President Trump, and getting him into the Oval Office, so that We, The People can have our country back. Anything less is unacceptable.

Tomorrow is PA Primary Election Day

Candidates Josh Prince and Patricia McCullough are the key votes you can cast in tomorrow’s primary election, and you should vote for them. Josh is running for Commonwealth Court, and Patricia is running for Supreme Court. They each face a PAGOP-endorsed insider establishment opponent who is either not qualified at all or not nearly as qualified as Josh and Patricia.

Running against Patricia is GOPe-supported Carolyn Carluccio, a Montgomery County trial court judge, who, I am told by attorneys who have argued cases in front of her, cannot point to a single case where she she has upheld the constitutional rights of We The People. Carluccio + RINO = spineless jellyfish = The People Lose Again.

McCullough is the opposite, having spent her time on the bench doing what judges are supposed to do, which is protect the rights of The People.

Josh Prince is a well-known attorney in Pennsylvania, who has devoted himself to protecting our individual rights. We wrote about him earlier. He has been my guardian angel battling a lawless Harrisburg City’s illegal anti-gun ordinances. Incredibly, his opponent has never even argued a case in a court room. How does the political establishment even come up with candidates like this? So lame.

Please vote for Prince and McCullough tomorrow, Tuesday May 16th. You will not be sorry.

Post-Primary Pennsylvania GOP Status

Six weeks after Primary Election Day, we have some intriguing things to consider.

First and foremost, two of the worst, most corrupt, most self serving careerist Republican state senators lost elections bids and will be gone from the PA State Senate after this November’s general election.

PA state senator Pat Browne lost his primary bid for a FIFTH four-year term in office to a political newcomer, Jarett Coleman, who was quoted “It’s pretty amazing….For so long, Republican voters have not had another choice. So I think this shows the displeasure that people have with their government. Being able to be part of that change is phenomenal, going against the Republican machine.”

Coleman won by THIRTY (30) votes, which is as close an election as one can have pretty much anywhere. Lessons learned: Every vote matters, your single vote matters, We The People matter, career politicians are vulnerable to challenge, career politicians should be challenged, would be challengers should not be afraid of the PAGOP, but rather should simply stick to their principles and reach out to the voters as best as they can.

Another state senator, Jake Corman, president pro tem of the senate no less, both lost his bid for governor and also his state senate seat, which was re-districted out of his control. Having spent a year and a half trying to find someone in the old district to challenge Corman in what would have been his primary race last month, I am not surprised he lost his senate seat. It was clear to me that Corman was widely hated by his own voters. Corman’s infamous double speak on so many issues, his imperious way with people who dared to question him in public, his dedication to self-serving actions instead of taking care of The People, it all came home to roost when Corman decided to roll the dice and run for governor as a way to step out of a seat he was likely to lose in the primary.

I recall that about ten years ago at the Pennsylvania Society, Corman announced that he was going to run for governor, and was rewarded with a room full of silence, then titters, then very light polite applause. Corman stormed out of the room in fury and embarrassment. But a silver spoon daddy’s boy like Corman can never accurately gauge public sentiment; his self-focused horse blinders are pulled in just way too tight. So he decided to run for governor anyhow, and received about 1% (one percent) of the vote…

Long and short of it, a Pennsylvania state senate minus Browne and Corman is moving in the right direction. Less careerism, less corruption, less obedience to party bosses…all good.

Now about that PA governor’s race. Isn’t it intriguing that neither Republican candidate Lou Barletta nor anyone else in PAGOP leadership has endorsed and come out in support of PA governor candidate Doug Mastriano?

Recall that Mastriano absolutely crushed the primary election with about 45% of the vote in a crowded field of roughly eight candidates (some were on the ballot but did not appear to actively campaign), decisively defeating a whole bunch of PAGOP favorites, because the Republican voters have been sick unto death of the empty suits and the fake promises and the do-nothing attitude of so many Republican wannabes.

Matt Brouillette of Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, Inc., raised a boatload of money for his own chosen RINO candidate, Bill McSwain, then dumped McSwain two weeks out from Election Day, and threw his support to Barletta. To no avail.

No one supporting Mastriano has heard a word from Brouillette, or from McSwain.

The point being here that RINOism seems to die hard, even when two careerist state senators lose their seats because the voters have had enough of RINOism, and even when a relative political newcomer like Mastriano whoops ass all over the political establishment. The people who represent a principle-less life, who pose and preen for cameras but who then put no skin in the game, just do not take the hint. They really don’t seem to care about the overall philosophical battle between good and evil, darkness and light, America and a borderless oblivion, right and wrong, law and lawlessness, etc. And that is what Mastriano’s campaign and election is all about: America as a constitutional republic based on the rule of law, or a lawless, corrupt state led by Bolshevik candidate Josh Shapiro.

If you care about the rule of law and good government, then you have to vote for Doug Mastriano.

It seems that the Brouillettes, Barlettas, McSwains, and PAGOPs of the world really just care about their own selves. And when they lose an election, they just pick up their toys and go home. They have nothing to contribute towards saving America, because they were always in politics just to serve themselves.

I think the patriotic pro-America voters have taken notice. If Mastriano wins the November election without the PAGOP et al, then it is the end of the PAGOP as a meaningful political force. And if Mastriano loses because the PAGOP and its array of RINOs would not support him, it is the end of the PAGOP as a meaningful political force, because they stood for nothing except their own power. Instead of Power to the People.

Are you in a (political) cult?

Politically active Americans pride themselves on having knowledge and basic principles that drive their political views and commitments. This goes for both left and right and especially the non-devoted “independents.”

But given how extremely out of kilter America’s economic and political landscape is right now (five dollar gasoline and 8.6% inflation by design of the Biden Administration, and lawless FBI thugs illegally performing the old Nazi Gestapo’s political function by arresting innocent political opponents of the Democrat Party), we have to ask if Americans on both the left and the right are politically devoting themselves to a form of cult worship. As in blindly supporting a political party or a political figure, regardless of how far away this devotion takes them from the essential beliefs they once held.

Because I was long ago a Democrat, and I have since fleeing that political party nonetheless long co-mingled with Democrat Party members, I have a base line for comparison, and so I will start here.

I am incredulous at how tenaciously so many Democrat Party members cling to that brand, despite so many widely deviating policy positions pouring out of it.  John F. Kennedy, vaunted Democrat Party icon even today, would have zero in common with the Democrat Party of today were he resurrected and inducted back into American politics. Rather, JFK would by today’s standards be a far-right Republican. This is because the Democrat Party has now abandoned every essential principle on which it stood, and has instead embraced and championed every anti-America, anti-child, anti-woman, anti-freedom, racist, Marxist, anti-America policy possible.

Given that the Democrat Party now stands for everything that is the opposite of what it used to stand for, it naturally follows that we ask if those Americans who are nonetheless still devoted to this organization are mentally in a cult. Like, they don’t realize it, and their blind devotion to something so profoundly destructive is an emotional response and not a reasoned response.

Look, if you so closely personally identify with a political organization that has repeatedly and radically changed its policies not just over your lifetime but over the past ten years, so strongly that you take it deeply personally when someone criticizes that organization, then yeah, you have a cult follower mindset. Because you have lost sight of the fact that all organizations are created to implement certain goals, and they are very rarely a personal reflection of you. This particular Democrat Party organization has shown zero fidelity to what it once represented…so how can you continue to so closely identify with it?

So I think the answer is Yes, especially a great many older Democrat Party members today are in fact in a cult mindset. They are emotionally loyal to an organization that is killing their grandkids’ future, and that personal attachment, that emotional way of thinking is why so many older Democrats then become absolutely enraged and incapable of maintaining a calm, logical discussion about policy and politics when their political party is criticized.

No debate is allowed, walls go up, friendships and even family relationships are ended. We all see it. It is tragic. It is unnecessarily destructive, and yet, this cult mindset persists.

Now, let’s look at the political right.

The American right is splintering along several philosophical paths, and it is amazing that the Republican Party has been able to provide a big enough “tent” to house all of these different views.

One path is religious, and not just Christian, but Sikh, Hindu, orthodox Jewish, and probably a few others. These are traditionalists who value family and community structures above all, and who ascribe religion with the capability of holding it all together. The crazier and more stridently anti-religion the Left gets (First Amendment be damned), the more these disparate people find themselves sharing the same fox hole. And based on my own personal experience, there are religious Christians who strongly oppose other religions, or liberal factions of other religions, but who nonetheless find themselves in league with them by necessity or by happenstance. Nothing wrong with that, as America is based on different people with the same shared values.

Another philosophical path on the right is the Small Government/ Big Citizen American. These are people not very religious, but devoted to running their small businesses, caring for their families, enjoying life, planning for their future. They see and reject the Left’s policies targeting everything they have worked for. They are especially at odds with Big Government + Big Tech taking control of their every thought, decision, communication, and bank account, and thereby reducing the citizen to a very small role in what is supposed to be a representative government tailor-made of, by, and FOR the citizen.

Finally, there are the nationalists, for whom a constitutional republic America represents the penultimate in human achievement. Some nationalists may be religious, of course, but there are a lot of proud Americans who rightly worship the American flag’s unique symbolism of freedom, liberty, opportunity.

Into the ointment of these neat little conservative philosophical categories flies the presence of President Trump. Without question there is a well-earned cult of personality surrounding President Trump, to whom myriad supporters often ascribe superhuman powers of discernment and strategery. It is a fact that President Trump saved America from the uniparty in 2016, and probably created a great national revival and awakening by having his re-election stolen in 2020. And so he deserves our adoration and appreciation, even if he isn’t really magic.

However, if there is any cult-like mentality on the right, it is among Trump Faithful who follow his every political endorsement, no matter how poorly reasoned or considered. Trump has made a bunch of frankly bizarre political endorsements around America that has left many of his supporters scratching their heads, like Dr. Oz here in PA and RINO Minority Leader Congressman Kevin McCarthy in California. Quite lovely primary battles are unfolding in Arizona and Nevada, where a couple of Trump’s endorsed GOPe candidates are being strongly rejected by Trump Faithful voters. They say that Trump showed them the way to the promised land, and that he has now has gotten bogged down in politics, which was never his strong hand.

And that right there shows that even among the Trump personality cult following on the right, there is both careful reasoning for why he earns support, and how there is disagreement with him over politics. Americans are understandably drawn to the only truly pro-America and non-political political candidate in many decades, President Donald J. Trump. Even those who openly adore the man also openly disagree with him.

I don’t think there is a political cult on the right. There definitely is one on the left.

 

Ten take-aways from my Election Day experience

With the Kerwin men, quality people

Primary elections are more important than the general election every November, because voters choose who is going to be representing them at the November election. And in the case of Republican Party voters, if you don’t vote for constitutional America-First candidates, you are guaranteed to have a Republican In Name Only (RINO) liberal running against the Democrat Party liberal in the November election. There’s not a whole lot of philosophical difference between the Republican liberal and the Democrat liberal, and after that November election between a RINO and a Democrat it’s just a question of how rapidly America is destroyed under your feet, slowly or quickly.

On Tuesday I volunteered at four different election polls, handing out brochures for Kathy Barnette, and I spoke with a lot of voters. Here are some take-aways from my experience during and after Tuesday’s Primary Election here in PA:

  • Unsurprisingly, voters make both simple and complicated choices in voting for candidates. Simple choices can be lazy or principled, and complicated choices can be bizarre or carefully thought out. Candidate selection is as complex as any other choice in life, and I think that is a good thing.
  • Party establishment endorsement is a negative among Republican/ conservative voters, who appear to increasingly view the GOP as a force for bad and not for good. For example, Lou Barletta’s campaign unleashed a tidal wave of Republican establishment career politician endorsements in the days before Tuesday’s election, and if anything these endorsements seemed to hurt Barletta at the polls, not help him; Doug Mastriano crushed Barletta.
  • On the other hand, Democrat voters seem highly attuned to and in synch with their establishment, as witnessed by political newcomer Justin Fleming’s trouncing of long time Democrat Party activist Eric Epstein in the newly created 105th Legislative District (PA House). For at least ten years, and probably closer to twenty years, independent-minded liberal Epstein has run for everything from dog catcher to school board to state senate, almost always unsuccessfully but always with close-call results. Not this time. Apparently ten unions and the House Democrat Campaign Committee aggressively weighed in to stop Epstein from finally capitalizing on his well-known household name in southcentral PA. Fleming the unprincipled “electoral pragmatist” won with 61% of the vote.
  • Money is not all that it used to be, but it can still matter in elections, no surprise. Case in point is a very small amount of money (like $157,000 total), old fashioned shoe leather, and reasonable social media networking got conservative grass roots favorite Kathy Barnette up to 25% of the vote in an eight-candidate race. This is a huge statement about the lack of importance of money. However, when the wildly false negative attacks against Barnette started pouring in during the last week from McCormick and Oz and their supporters, like Sean Hannity, Barnette lacked sufficient funds to get out her last-minute rebuttals on TV and radio that could have gotten her over the finish line to win. Enough confusion and obfuscation was created by the attacks to blunt Barnette’s position at the top, and allowed both Oz and McCormick to grow their own voter returns at her expense. Had Barnette possessed a million dollars to do last-minute TV and radio ads, she probably would have won the election.
  • Negative advertising does work, and it also greatly suppresses voter turnout. At all of the five polls I was at yesterday, voting was down between 10% and 20%, and I believe many voters were just fed up and confused by all of the negative advertising. SO they stayed home and said “I will just vote in November for whoever wins this primary race.”
  • Conservative voters are much more oriented toward ideology and principles than political party.
  • Almost every primary election has one winner and some losers, and almost always the losers say they will take their ball and go home if they don’t win, and they won’t back the winner of their race. For weeks before and even after the election was over, I heard unceasing complaints from Republicans about how Mastriano is “too conservative” for Pennsylvania, and that his win will automatically hand the governorship to Komrade Josh Shapiro. I also heard unceasing complaints from Republican voters that Lou Barletta was too milquetoast to appeal to anyone in November, except for blue haired suburban GOPe Republicans. Folks, get used to these competitive races. They are good for us. This competition is just the nature of real and healthy primary races, something that Republicans really need, and something that the GOPe HATES. The Republican Country Club Party hates hates hates sharing decision making with the unwashed dirty masses, who keep gumming up GOPe dreams of easy ill gotten wealth and posh fundraisers. Sorry not sorry, GOPe, get used to ceding more and more decision making to the actual people you claim to represent. It is a good thing, and it is why Mastriano won by an enormous margin.
  • For the most part, the GOPe got its ass kicked in PA and elsewhere in America. RINOs like Jake Corman (the sitting President Pro Tem of the PA Senate!!), Jeff Bartos, et al either dropped out or finished below 5%, while underdog candidates like Kathy Barnette and Dr. Oz scored big time vote returns against the establishment’s wishes. We are witnessing a power shift away from GOP party bosses, which is a good thing, because party bosses are corrupt and self-serving people.
  • Charlie Gerow is still a good guy, and still not a catchy candidate. Once again, voters enjoy Charlie as an articulate proponent of conservative values, but not as a representative in government for their needs. Charlie is a salon intellectual in the mold of William F. Buckley, one of the 20th century’s great conservative crusaders. Not winning elections doesn’t mean Gerow isn’t relevant, it just means his strength is in policy debates and in the conservative salon of ideas. Nothing wrong with that.
  • Finally, yard signs and road signs do not mean anything close to what they used to represent even ten years ago. At one time yard signs and roadside signs were a big part of electoral public outreach, but in this digital age, they are becoming less important. I would not say they are unimportant, because in some ways they can be used to get a sense of voter engagement. Like, lots of signs for Candidate X in a county or in a region probably means that Candidate X is well known there. But it does not mean that Candidate X is necessarily going to convert that name recognition into an Election Day win. Information is now moving so fast and so far across the political landscape, that just one gaffe or one slip-up by an otherwise reasonable candidate can mean the end of their lead or presumptive win. No amount of yard signs can counter a fifteen second video of a candidate doing or saying something ridiculous.

Thank you to all the voters who spent time talking with me on Tuesday. I promote candidates at polls on Election Day every year because these are people I believe in, and I believe in sharing the why and how I have arrived at my decision on whom to vote for. One thing that has not changed among voters at polls since I was a teenager is this: Liberal voters at polls are always surly, grumpy, dismissive, or disrespectful. Do not ask me why this is, but it does hint at how some people think.

 

 

Election Day is here

Most voters think the November election is important, because citizens are choosing between one political party and another. But the truth is, primary elections are the most important, because it is here that we resolve Who is going to be voted on in November. More than political party affiliation, the individual candidate really determines the values and policy commitments. Especially when we consider that every day there is less and less difference between the two main political parties, and that they have more in common with one another than they do with The People whom they are supposed to serve through government service.

And so we are witnessing a wonderfully, refreshingly messy primary season right now, across America, as grass roots candidates bare knuckle battle a uniparty establishment whose candidates are championed by both leftwing and conservative media outlets. Establishments of both Democrat and Republican parties are experiencing serious battering rams of angry citizens, determined to pull down the artificially chosen and often weak-willed establishment candidates from their war horses.

Those put off by this political and cultural bloodletting, bemoaning its ‘divisiveness’ and hard-edged words, apparently forget that this democratic process is a substitute for resolving differences through real bloodletting. Historically, humans have resolved their differences and power struggles via battle axe, knife, club, and mace.

Let us welcome tough words.

If you are reading this blog, then you are here for the Everyman perspective, whether you agree with it or are working hard to block it. Happily, I say you are not going to be disappointed:

  • Doug Mastriano should be the Republican choice for Pennsylvania governor. Doug is pretty new to politics, and yet has shown real leadership, taken risks and made sacrifices. He made a mistake as a new state senator when he joined fellow Republicans in supporting Act 77, a Democrat Party Trojan horse eagerly gobbled up by the gullible GOPe. Act 77 allowed all of the cheating in November 2020, resulting in a stolen election here in PA. Mastriano is a military Veteran, as pro-America and pro-citizen as possible, and he is electable in November this year. He deserves your vote.
  • Rick Saccone should be the Republican choice for PA Lieutenant Governor. Saccone has a long history of serving America in the military and in the Pennsylvania legislature as a fearless advocate for good government. He has taken enough of a break from government over the past six years to not be a careerist, and he is as pro-America and as pro-citizen as possible. He deserves your vote.
  • Kathy Barnette should be the Republican nominee for the open US Senate seat here in PA. She is a true grass roots candidate, the real embodiment of an America-loving citizen who risks and sacrifices much for the benefit of her fellow citizens. She offers a real “Mister Smith Goes to Washington” opportunity that so many Americans of all philosophical leanings are hungry for (she has spent less than $200,000 on her campaign and yet is poised to win in a three-way race where the other two candidates have each spent over THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS). Barnette served in the National Guard and has been the best, most plain-spoken advocate for basic American values and rights that anyone has seen anywhere across our fruited plains for a very long time. She is VERY electable in November. That Barnette is being attacked from all angles of both Democrat and Republican establishments and the media means that she is scaring the hell out of them all. Good. That means Barnette definitely deserves your vote.

The 103rd PA House District now includes not just Harrisburg, but a detached, distant, disembodied borough across a westward mile of Susquehanna River. Truly a miraculous piece of gerrymandering, the new district is well designed to protect Democrat careerists in Harrisburg City and blunt Republicans everywhere around. Except that many Hispanics and Blacks are understandably leaving the abusive Democrat Party, and this exodus can make this seat truly competitive. Two Republicans are vying tomorrow for the opportunity to challenge long-time utter zero state representative Patty Kim. Sorry, Patty, I feel badly saying this, but you are a leftist rubber stamp and an intellectual lightweight. Whichever candidate prevails tomorrow has a real opportunity to harness disaffected minority Democrat voters in November.

Don’t just vote tomorrow, but also volunteer for a candidate. I will be working a couple polling places for Kathy Barnette’s campaign. Hope to see you out there.

 

 

 

 

Kathy Barnette campaign files over 10,000* signatures!

The campaign for Kathy Barnette for US Senate has filed over 10,000* ballot petition signatures from registered Republican voters in Pennsylvania, well beyond any other candidate.

*UPDATE March 21st, 2022: Final ballot petition signature count for Kathy Barnette’s campaign is over 12,000! HOLY COW! This is serious grass roots support!

Pennsylvania requires 2,000 ballot petition signatures to qualify for a place on the ballot as an official candidate for US Senate.  Although a candidate’s campaign may file the requisite number of signatures, there is a small but serious cottage industry in disqualifying both voter signatures off of ballot petitions, and in DQing entire ballot petitions altogether. So, having a large (in Barnette’s case it’s huge) buffer of extra signatures and petitions means that opponent candidates will have a much harder job knocking a candidate off the ballot altogether. In this case I believe it is impossible for Barnette to be knocked off the ballot, because her signature margin is so large.

What an enormous indication this is of Barnette’s grass roots popularity. While her campaign may not yet have the zillionaire funding of Bartos or McCormick, Barnette does have the support of the voters. And if there is a lesson that establishment candidates have been taught more and more since 2008, it is that the voters don’t care about fancy campaigns or flashy candidates with impossible promises. What the voters want more than anything is a real candidate, an authentic American, which Kathy Barnette is.

Candidates Dave McCormick, Carla Sands, and Dr. Oz all recently “moved” to Pennsylvania to run for this senate seat. Only Kathy Barnette and Jeff Bartos are actually from Pennsylvania, and of these two only Barnette is a conservative working person. Bartos is a flashy RINO…yuck.

It is quite clear that Barnette is the voter favorite. Her polling is already ahead of Bartos and Sands, even though Barnette is starting fresh with no name recognition. Barnette’s public support is only going to grow.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing for the other candidates to set aside their egos and their big financial dreams, drop out of this race, and start supporting Kathy Barnette now, so that she is in her best possible position to win when the November election arrives? Why are they putting us all through this charade? Kathy Barnette already has this primary race won!

Kathy Barnette, honest to goodness all-American candidate for US Senate

Why Kathy Barnette has my support for US Senate

Kathy Barnette is an all-American lady, with personal roots all working people can relate to. Unlike her opponents (Dr. Oz, Dave McCormick, Carla Sands, Jeff Bartos), she is not false, or misleading. Her candor and earnestness are refreshing, because most politics today is a sea of garbage through which voters must carefully pick and swim.

Three of the four candidates opposing Kathy Barnette are from out of state (Carla Sands, Dave McCormick, and Dr. Oz), and they only recently discovered/ manufactured their Pennsylvania connection when they had an opportunity to run for senate. Each has a history of promoting far-Left policies (e.g. red flag laws that place law-abiding gun owners at risk of politically motivated SWAT teams kicking in their doors) that are exactly what America is dying from right now, so their sudden embracing of conservative policies that Republican Party primary voters want is waaaaayyyyy suspect.

Jeff Bartos is a proud, unabashed RINO (Republican In Name Only liberal) who changes his positions with the wind. He says he was pro-Trump when he was not pro-Trump. He says little about the blatantly stolen election of November 2020. Bartos only appeals to GOPe insiders who have zero contact with the Republican/America-First voting base.

Bartos would be a disaster as a US senator, probably following exactly in the footsteps of outgoing RINO Senator Patricia Toomey, whose 55% conservative/ 45% leftist voting record hardly represents what Americans want and need. Guys like Bartos and Toomey are overly sensitive to the Democrat Party’s Media-Big Tech industrial complex, whose anti-America partisanship knows no limits. And so Bartos would vote like former senator Arlen Specter used to vote and how Toomey has voted. I am positive Bartos will be no friend or ally to law abiding gun owners.

So away from the swampy quagmire of Bartos/McCormick/ Sands/Oz stands Kathy Barnette, a US Army veteran, working mom and wife. She is also black, which means she knows first-hand how destructive the liberal policies are that her opponents promote. And her policy positions reflect her down-to-earth life experiences.

I am proud to circulate ballot petitions for Kathy Barnette, to help her get onto the primary election ballot coming up for your vote in May.

I hope my fellow America-First voters will support Kathy Barnette for the US Senate.

PA’s ballot petitions are a Jurassic-era holdover from the days of political party collusion for control of the voters. Anyone should be able to run for office with minimal hurdles. But until we reach that pro-democracy point, I am proud to circulate petitions for outstanding candidates like Kathy Barnette

Kathy Barnette for US Senate. A pro-gun, pro-freedom candidate with beauty and brains

Kellyanne Conway’s figurehead on Jake Corman’s dead pirate ship

Kellyanne Conway, Trump advisor and advocate extraordinaire, has hired her political gun out to the Jake Corman for Governor campaign. What an odd couple, this highly principled, positive, and well spoken woman with this unprincipled, mean-spirited, spoiled, corrupt product of nepotism, Jake Corman.

It is easy for Pennsylvania conservatives to smack their foreheads and cry out “Why Kellyanne, WHY?” Because her action here is at a right-angle inconsistent with what she said and did when she was in the Trump Administration, where she fought daily against RINOs just like Jake Corman. You can’t find two more different people in politics than Conway and Corman…and yet, politics makes strange bedfellows.

I am willing to bet that Kellyanne Conway suffered a lot after the stolen 2020 election. I will bet that her private life and her finances took serious beatings, and I will also bet that she has been very nearly canceled out of just about every aspect of her prior life. She probably went from international spotlight articulate presidential spokeswoman and advocate for America First principles in January 2021, to almost a political nobody in January 2022.

That has to be tough to take. If this same kind of crushing lifetime cancellation landed on you or me, like all negativity when we went to restaurants or the library or the food store, we would be desperate to get some aspects of our former life back. It would be too painful to ignore, unless a person is substantially independently wealthy. And even then those ultra wealthy people tend to live inside their own weather system, so that even small disruptions to their personal lives are artificially magnified and extraordinarily painful to them. And if you aren’t independently wealthy, and I do not believe Conway is, then all the more so does an opportunity like this political consulting job with Corman become attractive.

I think we can all understand her needs and what this job provides her. There is no need to judge Conway harshly. And there is no need to take her seriously, either.

Thus, even a corrupt RINO like Jake Corman has something to offer Conway: some redemption, a small opportunity to re-enter public life with some dignity and public standing; some recognition of her former importance. And some big, big bucks.

Because we just know that the GOPe is writing her a huge check, because so much RINO-ism and continued political corruption is riding on the success or failure of a corrupt man like Corman. The GOPe and their little pet Jake Corman need every swinging awesome woman on deck they can get. I would not be surprised if Conway is being paid a million dollars or more for her campaign role as symbolic figurehead until Primary Day this Spring.

And what does Jake Corman’s campaign get out of spending crazy money on a figurehead like Kellyanne Conway? He gets some of that Donald Trump aura, some of that gen-u-ine all-America-First patriot that Jake Corman himself cannot produce and does not himself represent and can never have. Corman is too well known in Pennsylvania, and especially in his own senate district (where he was about to get primaried), as a corrupt phony and backstabber, to ever stand on his own two feet. After all, his entire career is due to his daddy being a state senator before him. Jake has literally never had a real job!

And oh, the irony of an anti-America RINO like Jake Corman trying to bathe himself in the stars-n-bars Trump glow, transmuted by Conway, because Corman is the primary reason why Trump’s voters never got an election recount in Pennsylvania. Corman not only did all he could to block a recount or an audit of the stolen 2020 election, but he then fired all of PA Senator Doug Mastriano’s senate staff when Mastriano got too close to starting an actual election audit.

Corman’s campaign is like an evil, rotting, dead pirate ship slipping through dark waters, trying desperately to attach a new figurehead to the bowsprit to fool voters from afar. Many people are sad to see Kellyanne Conway in this figurehead role for someone as gross as Jake Corman. I hope it is worth it, honey, because the Pirate Corman stench will never really rub off.

Welcome to PA.

Former President Trump advisor and spokeswoman, Kellyanne Conway

 

If political pirate Jake Corman had a ship, this evil, demonic skeleton would be its figurehead

What RINO Jake Corman is hoping his evil pirate ship’s figurehead will turn into with his hiring of Kellyanne Conway