Election Reflections, Part I …
I’m old enough to remember the Democrat presidential primary of 1988 when the drive-by media came together and ran Joe Biden out of the race — denouncing Biden as not having “the character to be president.” (Of course, all of the drive-bys were then in collusion with then-Mass. Gov. Michael Dukakis.) It’s tough to find any of those clips on the Internet. (*I wonder why.*)
The 2020 national race has been nasty and is only going to get nastier. I think it will be a while before the truth is finally shaken out of all this.
My amazement at Joe Biden’s performance is rivaled only by that of Stupid Roy Cooper. Besides not being very smart, the man has NO positive accomplishments on his record after decades in Raleigh.
Two things that I believe hurt Dan Forest from the beginning — his pledge to not go “negative” and his reliance on the exclusive campaign counsel of one Hal Weatherman. What some people call “going negative” is called by others “differentiation” and “explaining the difference between yourself and your competition.” It happens all the time in marketing the products we see on grocery store shelves. (The one bright shining moment I saw for Dan during the campaign was his debate performance. He wiped the floor with Gov. Stupid.)
In Forest’s past two elections for lieutenant governor, Forest was one of the — if not THE — top vote getter among council of state candidates. In 2020, just about every other Republican pulled roughly 100,000 or more votes MORE than Lt. Dan. THAT would seem to indicate a purposeful undervote. We know about the ‘Never Trump’ movement in the party. Could there have been a ‘Never Dan’ effort going on? (We heard months ago from countless GOP “stars” discussing a 2024 run for governor as though they believed there would be NO incumbent Republican in that race.) Could that race have been left blank on purpose on many ballots? Could “Republicans” have marked Cooper’s name? I still believe Robin Hayes got screwed by his own party in his 1996 race against Jim Hunt. Could the same have happened to Lt. Dan? Selfishness trumping “the good of the party”?
Another interesting race was for US Senate. Thom Tillis has STILL not cracked the 50 percent mark. EVER. Considering the scandals of Cal Cunningham, and the subsequent beating he took for them, the race was still too darn close. I thought the total vote for the two third-party candidates in the race was interesting. The two of them together garnered nearly 235,000 votes. They did better than ANY other independent candidate in any race in North Carolina. Looks like a lot of Republicans (and maybe some Democrats) said “none of the above” and marked a third-party candidate’s name.
I also remember 1998 when the main stream media ran disgraced Joe Biden out of the presidential primary because of his history of and ongoing plagiarism and lying.
Flash forward to 2020 and the main stream media is covering for and backing good ole Beijing Biden.
To call all this Orwellian is an understatement.
The leftstream media styles itself the “mainstream media” but there is nothing “mainstream” about them. Better names are the Dishonest Democrat Media or the Corrupt Corporate Media. They are propagandists, not journalists. No wonder the Gallup poll finds that 60% of the American people do not trust the media, including 90% of Republicans and 64% of Independents.
More times than not I’ve settled on calling them the Corrupt Corporate Media. I’m still working on what to call Big Tech. What I’ve got in my head is just not clean enough to use in public. I’ll keep pondering that one.
I am very puzzled by the Doof’s election. I find it hard to believe that about 200k or so folks were willing to fill in the ballot for Trump but then go over and fill in the circle next to that moron. It just does not make a bit of sense that he pulled in more votes than Trump at all as they are just the polar opposite. I may be niave, but are there really hundreds of thousands willing to go never Dan but NOT never Trump?….and then go down the ballot and continuing to fill in mostly R’s as they went along. I am wondering if they utilized the HAMMER and SCORECARD program on Doof’s election, but then that would have used to put Trump behind as well.
I also see the motive for delaying the votes so long. They seem to have been overwhelmed with how many votes in PA that they had to fake up to overcome the Trump landslide. I think NC has/is being held just in case they needed it to take the place of PA. I fully expect them to start faking up the Senate race with the votes they have left to “count” by the 12th.
NC was a ‘hold’ state, only if needed. Trump, Tillis pulled far too many votes or exceeded expectation and I suspect the task would have been impossible. However, NO DOUBT, Cooper had ‘A PLAN’ with the Dem Party, Soros and other leftists to join a pact. The deal was, use their Bd of Elections, Sec of State and mail-in ballots as a weapon to win the election.
DID NOT Cooper on a hot mic tell Biden in Raleigh last month, all is well? Also thought they could pull Cal ‘over’ as Cooper announced; however Cal cooked his own goose and was un-pullable across.
The actual numbers on remaining ballots seems to be a mystery. Was 117k but now, approx 99k. Supposedly only 30% of those are Dems and the balance Unaffiliated and Republican. If so, doubtful those ballots can offset Trump’s 76k lead and Tillis is far over that number. However, JUDGES>….WATCH OUT>….those numbers are small and I can see, Chief Justice Race especially, tanking……IS NCGA, Republicans, Republican Party WATCHING?? They GIVE ME LITTLE COMFORT!
As for Forest, his campaign was HORRID…either RUN or stay home. Cooper served the Governor seat up on a silver platter….can you imagine a Jesse Helms running against Cooper. DO WE HAVE ANY FIRE BELLY Republicans??? I can’t name ONE…??? McCrory supposedly ‘ticked off’ the west and lost. Have heard Forest was a ‘weak’ candidate…then why run him? And, the 2024 race is certainly understandable for some to tank Forest. Also, don’t doubt power and influence of the NCAE. A union that always supports Dems, esp Cooper and they drive, compel and threaten their members. Teachers are indebted, or so they think, to the NCAE IF ever sued. NCAE uses the ‘we will defend you’ and without us, you are on your own…..
I will state now….the NCGA and Republicans, Moore, Berger, et als better get a fire…a bonfire going and thwart Cooper’s last 4Y. IF NOT…they can pound sand I’ll vote any of them. I’ve already sent both and others a letter. Cooper has punished and destroyed this State and little opposition was done by NCGOP., NCGA….
Tillis survived another 6Y ONLY b/c Cal tanked himself. Otherwise, very unsure Tillis would be going back to DC…and the fact he’s done little to nothing, doesn’t matter to me.
Tell me this? Re: Cooper votes, support? IS Michael Whatley incapable OF researching, studying and determining why? Can you imagine Carter Wrenn losing 1 election and NOT correcting the next time? WHY is Cooper’s ‘support’ such a mystery? Think Carter wouldn’t have known and countered? Is anyone in the NC GOP capable of leading this state? IF NC GOP is taking credit for any of the GOP victories on Tues, they are fooling themselves. If so powerful and great, why do we have Cooper? TOP OF THE TICKET always the most important. Same for DC. Who nominates judges, SCOTUS, runs economies, the military the world politics, top of the ticket? Rural counties remain very conservative. Robeson Co has made national headlines. VERY Democratic county yet over 60% VOTED TRUMP???? WHY can’t the NCGOP garner that support, capture that fire? MY thought, NCGOP wants to be blue-blooded, snobby, white collar party and actually cares less about blue collar, middle, working class. Dan Forest didn’t connect with middle-class NC, for the most part. STEVE TROXLER does…..there is the difference. Just looking back at R governors, McCrory, Holshouser, Martin…any of those middle, blue collar? NCGOP has a major issue connecting. And, the years of abuse of power, raw political scandal and power/greed won’t carry them into 2024.
The NC RINO Establishment runs the NC GOP. The conservative grassroots are just the “little people” who do the work, but the RINOs call the shots and reap the rewards of appointments. Look no further than the Republican appointees on the UNC Board of Governors who are pushing liberalism in the UNC system. Proves my point.
Stan is totally correct
Great comments here. I went all over Moore and Montgomery County in recent months. The huge wins here for Conservatives did not surprise me. Never saw or heard of Forest or Tillis here once, despite my Moore County being home to one of strongest groups of grassroots voters from all imaginable backgrounds. I could not stomach voting for Tillis, who stands for nothing. Left that race blank. Forest was a big disappointment. I warned his campaign six months ago they needed to get out to rural counties and all I heard back were echos. People out here in flyover country are spitting mad over Commie Cooper and Democrat fraud. No way did any Conservatives vote for Trump and then also chose Cooper. I called all my reps on Thursday and told them I expect to see them in battle gear the next day. Only one replied, my state Senator McInnis, and his reply indicated they’d already thrown in the towel. This pushed me over the edge though, going to run for some office and shake some things up.
This is an article about reflections on the election so I have some:
1. On the Dan Forest race; I just started to do this case study, starting in Union and Moore counties (these are both Republican strongholds), and it was more interesting than one would expect. Dan lost in the big cities, Monroe and Aberdeen, won in rural areas but, interestingly, barely won in the most affluent areas of the counties. Why? These are supposed to be business friendly areas, the prime beneficiaries of a free market capitalist economic system, but yet 44 to 48% supported the socialist leaning Democrat candidate. This needs further study before we make guess opinions.
2. On Tillis race; Every Republican who pays attention, even minimally, to candidates knew Tillis was in trouble because of his ignoring and frankly his abandonment of the base that first elected him. I never supported him in the primary but he won and was “our guy” so I voted to have him return to the office. I think he may have gotten an epiphany had saw the light of supporting Trump which is what saved his behind. Maybe, and we will see in the next coming years, he will realize that being a conservative legislator throughout his term will save him the agony of trying to come from behind especially against slugs like Cunningham.
3. On the leadership on Mike Whatley; I think we all have to step back before we criticize him and look at what he has accomplished. I, As a legislator and seeing who influences legislation in NC the most the important races in NC and in this order were; Trump, the NC Supreme Court, the Governor and then the State Legislature (Senate and House majorities). He accomplished 3 of the 4. He is also on top of any efforts to fraudulently steal the election from Paul Newby. The races for Governor and the State Legislature were the responsibility of the candidates themselves but the election of Trump and Whatley’s coordination in leading the efforts with Newby, Berger and Berringer paid off in NC. Give him the credit for that.
4. On the future of Pat McCrory; I am glad to see he has “found his voice” on radio and is successful but my opinion is he never sets foot in elected office again. Thank goodness the state legislature, at the time, was a republican super majority for without it McCrory would have made a mess of the state. He arrogantly ignored the base that elected him being booed at the state convention in 2014, supported the unpopular I-77 tollway (against the advice of his re-election advisors), sided with former Democrat governors in lawsuits against the state legislature twice, worked against the efforts of NC’s Commercial fishermen and produced budgets that would have made the democrats proud (which both the Senate and House literally threw them in the garbage).
5. On future elections and candidates; the Republican platform document is supposed to represent the intentions and direction of the Party and we, as a party must seek out and promote candidates that reflect the document. That should be a prominent calling of the state party. Having vigorous debate before the primary does not show disunity but shows we support open debate, the vetting of ideas and the exposing of hidden agendas that may be necessary to reveal. As National Committeeman and a member of the State Central Committee I supported that effort.
6. Lastly on the Board of Governors; I have supported former State Rep. from Pender County Chris Millis to be a member of the Board. He is smart, knowledgeable and a strong conservative that would be active on the Board and be willing to speak out about the problems we see and hear in the UNC System. When the time comes to appoint these members I will need the support of everyone who cares about the direction our University system and needs to stand behind him.
Mark Brody’s insightful comments on the election results are worth studying as we go forward and prepare for the future of the party. I agree with most of what he says. I wish him well on his support of Chris Mills for the UNC Board of Governors, although I think it’s too late. The Republican legislature decided ten years ago when it took control that they would leave the anti-Republican Leftists in charge of the UNC system schools. The UNC system is now even more liberal than when the Republicans took control. Why would the GOP legislature change course now after ten wasted years?