Archive for the ‘elections’ Category

Image via Baseball-Reverence.com

If you look at any list of world series winners you will note that the listed winner of the World Series in 1919 is always the same.

It is the Cincinnati Reds managed by Pat “Pop” Moran (from my city of Fitchburg Massachusetts after whom Moran square in the city is named and to whom a nice monument exists in west Fitchburg).

The 1919 Reds are a team that doesn’t get enough credit but let’s take a look at the actual real numbers involved via that invaluable site Baseball-Reference. com :

The 1919 Reds were a good team, they went 96-44 finishing 9 games ahead of John McGraw’s giants. By comparison their World Series Rivals finished 88- 52 3 1/2 games ahead of the Cleveland Indians.

They had a first rate pitching staff with a team ERA of 2.23 (almost a full run better than their world series opponents at 3.04) this is why they gave up a mere 2.9 runs per game nearly a full run less than their World Series Rivals

At the plate they were 2nd in the National league in batting, slugging and OPS and led the national league in OBP, although all of those numbers were below their AL rivals.

With the Glove the Reds had a fielding percentage of .974 to their AL rivals .969 a slight edge but combined with their pitching lead to their run differential of 1.3 not only led the majors but was a full 30% higher than their vaunted AL rivals.

Put simply the Reds were a team with strong pitching and defense and solid up and down the lineup facing a team in the world series with a solid ace and a stronger batting lineup if you look at the team stats for the season one could easily pick the Reds as the favorite to win. (One might point to their White Sox ace with a 29-7 with an 1.82 record in 35 starts as the deciding advantage, that is if you ignored the fact that Reds Starter Dutch Ruether went 19-6 with an identical 1.82 ERA in 29 starts).

It was to be the classic matchup of a team with an overwhelming offense vs a team with solid pitching up and down the rotation and better defense…

…or rather it would have been if a group of White Sox players had not decided to throw the series. This led to all kinds of scandal, trials, losing of evidence and the appointment of a tough baseball commissioner who ruled the game with an iron fist for the next 20 years.

However it didn’t change the result. In the record books the Cincinnati Reds were the winners of the 1919 world series.

Today everyone remembers the 1919 White Sox but few talk about the excellent Reds team that won the series and everyone assumes that the White Sox would have won if they didn’t throw the series because nobody has bothered to remember how good the Reds actually were but even though the 1919 Reds are only remembered these days as the team that the Black Sox threw the world series to, in 1919, 1924, 1950, 1972, 1999 and even today 104 years later if you look up the question: “Who won the 1919 Major League World Series” the correct answer remains: “The 1919 Cincinnati Reds 5 games to 3.”

And that brings us to the favorite question that the media likes to ask the GOP during the 2024 cycle.

Right now the country is in the worst shape than I have ever seen in my 60 years on this planet. The economy is in a shambles, our position in the world is a joke, our military is in a self destructive cycle, our social fabric is tearing apart our borders don’t exist, laws are not enforced, basic human rights that we had acknowledged as sacred for centuries are cast aside and we have a president who on a good day has the intellectual and physical prowess of John Gill.

The media/academic left is doing all it can to protect the banana republic that this administration has become and as part of this attempt keeps circling back to the 2020 election asking every GOP candidate running for any office from President to dog catcher: “Who won the 2020 presidential election?” figuring that an answer of “Trump” can be used to discredit the candidate with the general public while an answer of “Biden” will discredit them from the base.

There is no question in my mind that election 2020 was stolen and that inaction by the people charged with enforcing the norms to make sure the result is honest led to the final result but the bottom line is as simple as the answer to who won the 1919 world series.

So I suggest that if you are a GOP Candidate for President, or Senator or Congress, or Governor or Dog Catch and the question is asked:

“Who won the 2020 election?”

or

“Did Joe Biden win the 2020 election?”

the proper answer by any GOP candidate who thinks the election was stolen or might have been stolen is: “Joe Biden won the presidential election of 2020 election as sure as the Cincinnati Reds won the world Series in 1919.”

They won’t like the answer and if they challenge it the best response is: “Are you saying the Cincinnati Reds didn’t win the 1919 world series?” and press them on this.

Now I realize that this is to some degree an insult to the 1919 Reds who as I’ve noted above were a great team and were certainly capable of winning the 1919 World Series but as they are all long dead I think they will forgive us in this case.

“First we must cross the river,” Benito was saying.  “Do you believe me now when I tell you that you must not attempt to swim it, or even get wet from it, or must you try that too?”

“What happens if I just dive in?”

“Then you will be as you were in the bottle.  Aware and unable to move.  but it will be very cold, and very uncomfortable, and you will be there for all eternity knowing that you put yourself there.”

Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle Inferno 1976

Lately we’ve been seeing a lot of posts about Democrat panic as things continue to get worse in the country and more and more of what the left has been doing continues to come out.

But then actual reality slips in and that’s when you get nailed:

Bonchie at red state puts it in perspective:

The GOP challenger was James Guzofski, a local pastor who once proclaimed from the pulpit that the prophets told him Trump won the 2020 election. He lost by 12 points in a district that current Republican Gov. Chris Sununu won by 22 points. In other words, this wasn’t some long-shot blue district. This was a district the GOP was supposed to easily compete in, if not be favored to win outright. 

Moreover this puts the GOP majority in the house on a knife edge:

There are now 198 Republicans, 197 Democrats, two Independents, and three vacant seats in the state House.

Now you would think that going into an election with a 2 seat majority in a 400 member house the state GOP would have been all in concerning this election.

It was not.

There are several lessons here the first is this:

It doesn’t matter what the national pols are saying, if you are losing districts like this, that you absolutely have to win then you aren’t going anywhere.

People can get excited by Biden’s falling poll numbers all they want but if you can’t win a seat like this it those numbers are meaningless.

But more important consider this:

Guzofski is a Northwood selectman and a chaplain for the Northwood Fire Department. He has been in the ministry for 34 years. Guzofski said, “I have been elected twice to the office of selectman in Northwood dedicated to keep your taxes low. As selectman I have implemented plans for better communication between town officials and you. … For years I have served our Nottingham and Northwood community, fighting for your needs in town.”

Sounds like a person who is well known in the area and might have plenty of local pull particularly in a district where there former rep was a republican and the republican governor won by 22 points. But there is also the youtube video of him proclaiming from the pulpit that the prophets told him that Trump won the 2020 election.

Now it’s one thing to believe that election 2020 was stolen based on the evidence as I do, it’s another to proclaim that the prophets told you that Trump won in 2020.

One might think that the saints might be more interested in the state of a person’s soul vs the results of a national election but let’s stay on topic a sec.

How many voters who voted GOP in the past looked at that video and bluntly told themselves: “I don’t want this loony at the state house?” I’m guessing more than the 331 votes margin he lost by.

What does that tell me? Just this:

It doesn’t matter how many people show up at rallies in deep red states or just how inept Joe Biden is, there is a portion of the GOP vote that simply will NOT vote for Donald Trump or people associated with him and no amount of national polling or wishful thinking or saying how foolish this is will change that.

And it’s worth remembering this fellow had a long local footprint. He was the fire department chaplin, he was a local selectman he is known in the community but that didn’t matter. There are those who simply will not vote for a Trump associated candidate no matter how much of a local footprint he has:

I wish this was not true, but wishing that it’s not true or saying how unfair it is doesn’t change things.

I’ll give Bonchie the last word:

I may not be that smart, but I’m capable of learning from past mistakes, and I’m not going to blow smoke up anyone’s backside and suggest this special election result doesn’t matter. Clearly, given what happened in 2022 with special elections, it matters, and if something doesn’t change quickly among the Republican electorate, 2024 is going to be another swift kick in the teeth. 

Remember, vote for life. It may be your own.

Mother Angelica

Yesterday Donald Trump hit Ron DeSantis from the left for signing a heartbeat bill suggesting that such bills hurt the republican party and talking how he would sign a compromise national bill restricting abortion to 13 weeks.

I can’t speak for others but I’m catholic and abortion is a sine non qua for me. It’s they type of thing that you risk your soul over. I’ve got enough sins that I worry about without compromising myself over life for the sake of a primary or national election.

Mother Angelica, the founder of EWTN put it very well herself when it comes to compromising on sin in her famous story concerning Peanuts. Her nuns were selling peanuts as a fund raiser and were doing pretty well on it when suddenly a new concessions manager demanded an “advertising fee” or as mother put it a kickback. When he threatened to pull the concession from her her answer was classic:

Mother Angelica: Look, if I’m going to hell, it’s not going to be over a peanut.

Here is her telling the story

Now there is no question that Donald Trump’s record on life as president was a great one. Three Supreme Court Judges that got rid of Roe vs Wade, first president to attend the national march for life, there is no question that his record was excellent.

Furthermore I don’t have a problem with incremental change when that’s the best you can do. In a republic you can change laws without educating the public and persuading their representatives to vote with you.

  • If a state has laws allowing abortion to the date of birth then in such a state I’ll welcome a 26 week ban
  • If a state has laws allowing abortion to 26 weeks I’ll welcome & work toward a 13 week ban
  • If a state has laws allowing abortion to 13 weeks I’ll welcome & work for a six week / heartbeat ban
  • if a state has laws allowing abortion up to six weeks I’d welcome & work for an outright ban
  • and if a state has laws outlaw abortion except for rape and incest I’d welcome & work for those exceptions to be removed because a life isn’t defined by the sins of their father.

if your lifeboat isn’t big enough to fit everyone pull from the water who you can while you build a bigger one.

But to retreat and condemn the efforts to save life for the sake of a political campaign, to reject what can be done in the hopes of getting power, to make the life of the unborn child with it’s potential and God given soul and to abandon the soul of the mother and the father an all those involved who risk their souls in this action is to abrogate our duty and to abandon the spiritual work of mercy that is admonishing the sinner because it is these souls that are at risk. Or as Mother Angelica put it:

Those who tell the Truth love you. Those who tell you what you want to hear love themselves.

Mother Angelica

All for the sake of a few more votes? All in the hope that both sides will love you? I think not.

Again Trump is my 2nd choice and if he gets the nomination I’ll have no trouble voting for him vs any of the “abortion till birth” democrats from Biden on down.

But in a primary with a choice between a candidate who has advance the cause of life and one that says he will roll back that advance for the sake of compromise? Well that’s really no choice at all.

There are a lot of things that might be worth reporting this week but the biggest and most significant is this:

Democrats have now decided that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are no longer useful.

In fact they have actually reached the point where they believe that even with the FBI going after conservatives and the online services censoring the right at full swing and their friends in the courts sentencing those who spoke aloud about the steal to decades in prison that the country has reached the point where more people hate Joe Biden than Donald Trump.

You see one of the reasons why I endorsed Ron DeSantis early is my conclusion that enough people hated Trump that he would not be able to overcome the unpopularity of Joe Biden, particularly in states where the fix has been in.

I have also believed (although I’ve not written it until now) that the moment the GOP nominates anyone other than Trump that the left would rush to push Biden off the ticket because while he might have a chance vs Trump, he has no chance against anyone else because the only way you can get folks to vote for people who are oppressing them is to energize the haters who hate Trump more than they love themselves and their children.

But they have apparently concluded that Joe Biden is so unpopular that it is not possible or at least very difficult to steal an election because the vote against him would be so overwhelming that the amount of votes you would have to create in key counties would be prohibitive.

So with the command in place suddenly all the MSM is suddenly discovering that Joe Biden is not healthy enough to be president and Kamala Harris is not competent enough to be VP.

The only instinct that Biden really has is political survival so I suspect he will push back but I also suspect that those in the deep state who want him out might choose a different, horrible, but completely plausible way to have the office of president pass on to another person from the hands of an elderly man.

I suspect the only thing that’s preventing that option is Harris as VP.

Does this make Trump a better choice than DeSantis? Not in the least, Trump is still a solid 2nd choice among the current GOP candidates (I’d take him over the gov of VA if he runs too) because I’m convinced that DeSantis would do a better job AND has a better chance to win.

But I will now concede that if nominated and facing Joe Biden it’s is not impossible for him to win because the fear and actions of the left have told me so.

That fear might be as irrational as the hatred of those who are nevertrump but fear is contagious and even if it’s irrational it can change the playing field.

Update: A visual aid to explain: