Tag: statewide election

I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating

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It’s a cheap shot today and return after a long absence.

The Primaries are going on today in Virginia.  So far it looks like a par for course run; the races that are close are going to be driven by the grassroots support that is drummed up during these off-season primaries while strong incumbents and those who are historied within the wall of their respective parties will clinch their nominations with little difficulty.  That doesn’t bother me.  Shenanigans bother me, and I’ve been listening to them for months.

The purpose of the Republican Primary was to ensure that there was ‘purity’ in the selection of the candidates that were chosen last month.  There was the need for this to be ‘honest’ and ‘clear of meddling’.  Rush Limbaugh refers to these yet to materialize, and oft worried about, efforts at tampering ‘Operation Chaos’.  The gist is simple: open primaries mean that Democrats can roll in to the polling station and supposedly pick the weaker of two candidates, effectively setting up their “strong” candidate with an easy win.  If the yarn sounds familiar, it was kicked around in 2008 when McCain was winning much to the chagrin of the Republican party.  It was rolled out again in 2012 when Mitt Romney was facing supposedly impossible odds against the titanic political powers of Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachman, and (seriously?) Rick Santorum.

Therein lies the problem.  Since the end of the Primary, and the wretched result that has me wincing each morning I have to listen to John Fredericks talk about the latest train wreck of a video someone has dug up on the Virginia Lieutenant Governor nominee E.W. Jackson, the discussion has shifted from the need for purity in the selection process to encouraging our team to go out and vote during the open primaries for the other side.  Granted, there are primaries today for Republican candidates, and to those I say go nuts, have a ball.  For the Democratic candidates and races I wonder where the wagging tail ends and the dog begins.

Now, I enjoy Mr. Fredericks’ show, and have so since I discovered it on a drive to work one morning last year, but I take pause with his notion that voting in the Democrats open primary is perfectly acceptable after our party went to such great lengths to prevent such actions.  It is, of course, his choice, and he chose to exercise that, and in no way am I saying it’s bad.  I’ve met Senator Northam, at the end of election night where I was working for the team that was trying to take his seat, and found him most agreeable, articulate, and, to borrow common vernacular, very real.  As Fredericks said, and so I shall reiterate, what you see from Northam is what you get.   No, I have no problem with his selection, but I’m saying the action of voting for a democrat after you’ve selected your Republican candidate feels…awkward.  It invites analysis by others, and recognition of the inherit weakness of the primary system; any Tom, Dick, or Harry can roll into a polling station and vote for a rep from their state or district.

After the utter, pardon the following, shitcan mess that was the Republican primary in May, why on earth would we advertise, nay, encourage our huddled masses, who were terrified of the bogeyman of cross-platform voters, to go out and do the very thing we decried as fouling the process?  It is hypocritical to demand a pure representation of a party, then to encourage our team to go out and muddy the waters for the other side.  There is no honor in it.

Stars out of the eyes, I understand that, mathematically, the Republican turnout for a Democratic primary is going to be low (maybe 0.25-0.5% of the Republican voting block, so 0.10-0.35% of the overall voting block for the district), but the notion is noxious to me.  If we are going to claim moral high ground it means constant diligence.  Moral strength comes from the ability to act consistently, and in the political world consistency, if measured in gold, would be worth the national debt and a few dollars more.  Lastly, if Mr. Fredericks is going to champion the notion of selecting a candidate based on his authenticity and amicable nature in working across the aisle, maybe closing a post out by talking about the unique opportunity to take Senator Northam’s seat in a special election should probably be saved for another day.  Especially when you are reminding folks that Northam’s vote, if taken, would tip the balance to 21-19 in favor of the Republicans who, at the moment have a very, very weak candidate running for the coveted tie-breaker known as, you guessed it, the Lt. Governor of Virginia.  I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you, Mr. Fredericks, to cover yourself; your machinations are showing.

Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?

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I thought the quote from the Avengers was appropriate here.

Two sides in Wisconsin, genuinely believing they are working for the greater good but coming from wildly different directions, engaged in a full scale brouhaha to make their point known.  I’m still not certain as to who would wear the tights, but I call dibs on the Iron Man suit.

Fashion jokes aside, the fight was largely pointless, and  the essence of american voters, played by Captain America in this little production, stopped the fight between two petulant powerhouses.  In the end vox populi spoke loud and clear, and Gov. Walker remains in place for two more years, but has lost his majority in the State Senate.

The day-after recovery is over, the analysis is done, and we found out that 38% of voters who supported Walker came from homes that have at least one member in a union.  We found out that while roughly $75 million was spent on this campaign, walker trudging up $30 million of that on his own through Super PAC donors, the real story remains that the turnout, percentage-wise, was almost identical to the election two years prior, even with a higher voter turnout.

I’m tired of the Citizens United decision being touted as the evil grandaddy and reason everyone is winning.  I call BS.  You can throw millions at a campaign and if the message sucks, or the candidate is less than stellar, looking at you Gingrich and Santorum, you will accomplish next to nothing except transferring wealth from donors to local businesses.

The issue with the Walker recall was that he did exactly what he said he was going to do.  The politically connected unions and loyal opposition were taken aback when an elected official decides to follow through on campaign promises.  Were those promises heavy handed?  Some can argue as much, but these are desperate times, and the voters selected desperate measures, and thus they were delivered after much bally who and childish shenanigans by the State Senators unhappy with the legislation.

So, in response to a governor who did what he swore he would do, despite some of the blatantly childish political behavior I have seen in my life, and the result was a nationally supported recall.  I don’t mean that the entire nation supported the recall, but that interests well outside the borders of Wisconsin became involved.  It was no longer about just about a losing side’s dissatisfaction with being thrown out of office and then having to suffer the political fallout that comes from failing to represent the people rather than representing the interests that fill the campaign coffers.

Sanity reigns in the Old Dominion but it isn’t stopping the show

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On Friday a highly anticipated decision regarding the appearance of Primary candidates who couldn’t muster enough support to be placed on the Virginia ballot came down, and it was an absolute delight.   The Hon. John A Gibney Jr. echoed what many had said over the weeks leading up to this (copy of the decision provided care of Politico): “In essence, they played the game, lost and then complained that the rules were unfair.”

I saw former Speaker of the House New Gingrich as being the sole individual who might even have a modicum of a chance in the challenge, with the disparate rules regarding those who get over 10,000 signatures and those who get over 15,000 signatures.  So, when he didn’t file the suit, and it was Rick “I barely pulled off half of what was required” Perry, it was doomed to fail.  When Santorum and Huntsman jumped on board, it was an obvious grab, like those who aren’t directly affected by a particular event, but jump onto a civil lawsuit pocket some ill-gotten reward, the theatre of the situation only worsened. The most galling of notes, aside from the Huntsman/Santorm scam attempt, was that Gingrich did not file  notice of intent to run for office in Virginia until 22 December 2011.  For those unaware, signature collection began on 1 July 2011.

The argument that if the candidates had access to the horde of out-of-state petition gatherers (of the paid variety I imagine) that they would have easily trumped the 10,000 signature requirement is dubious at best.  Judge Gibney pointed out in his decision that there are over five million registered voters in Virginia, and close to two million participated in the last statewide election.  Cut down the middle that means that there were one million active voters that should have been available to had their doors knocked and said yes or no.  If all candidates had hit those doors, and assuming a one in ten chance of success, that still leaves roughly 100,000 voter signatures, more than enough for all of the candidates combined, and room for a few more.  Another point of disclosure, a registered voter can sign for more than one candidate.

I will give a local example to ply exactly how poorly these men failed: Ben Loyola, a local businessman, ran for State Senate last year.  During his campaign he is said to have knocked on over 50,000 doors personally.  After the campaign events were done for the night, barring it wasn’t too late, he along with his campaign manager and body man would head out to a section of the district he was running for and started on a block, and away he would go.  Sometimes only 20 houses in a night, sometimes north of 100.  Either way, he was on the ground personally.  Come election day Mr. Loyola, sadly, did not win, but pulled in over 10,000 votes.  Those in the game have said the door to actual vote ration is somewhere in the 10:1 range.  If a local businessman can walk from the Hampton Roads area to the border of Maryland looking for support on what would be even less than a shoe-string budget compared to a national campaign, then all of these individuals running for President could have gotten the word out, or, at the least, made a damn appearance in the state.  A Gingrich event at a park, cordinated with one of the Tea Party organizations would have brought hundred, mayhaps a few thousand.

What happened in earnest, is that the candidate didn’t put their foot forward, and in the case of Santorum and Huntsman, they flatly didn’t give a damn (Santorum did gather signatures, but since he never filed a notice to run in the state of Virginia, the signatures were turned away).  Those in Virginia now roaring to the Heavens about the intolerable nature of it all, and the vile laws that govern the way it goes have forgotten that their signature and their options on the ballot are driven not only by their keen interest in a candidate, but in the candidate’s campaign to do the bare minimum.  Santorum is a perfect example with the  thousands spent in Virginia to gather the roughly 8,000 signatures, then to have them turned away because he didn’t fill out the needed paperwork.  He, himself, and his campaign managers, national and Virginia, are bearers of  blame there.

Virginia is not some evil society of string-pulling puppeteers winnowing the field of choices down to the guy they kinda-don’t-like and the one that is getting run over because he sounds crazy saying in public what we’ve been chatting about over kitchen tables for the last twenty years.  The law is in place, followed for decades, and performed as intended.  Should someone fail to follow the letter of the law, there is a punishment that goes along with that.  Those who cannot even follow that simple dictum have no place running for the highest office in the land.  If they can’t figure out one state’s requirements for a simple primary petition, how can we have any faith that they will be able to grasp the issue then  provide educated insight and leadership on topics far, far more complex?