Archive for the ‘primaries’ Category

Jeff Van Drew Solves the no win problem for Trump District Democrats on Impeachment

Posted: December 15, 2019 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, elections, News/opinion, politics, primaries
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When I started writing this post is was going to be with the following premise: While it is a wise political move to put pressure on swing state Trump district Democrats to suggest that voting for impeachment will be against their political health, the entire premise of that argument is wrong because they were in a no-win situation.

If they vote for impeachment of course they anger voters in their Trump supporting districts who think it’s a sham or might be enjoying their best economic situation in a decade and thus risk their seat in a general election but if they oppose impeachment and embarrass the Democrat party, they are sure to draw a successful primary challenge not only because a 1st term member of congress is as a rule vulnerable but the ANTIFA loving Trump hating fanatics are frankly the most motivated of Democrat voters and such folks would likely draw huge war chest to destroy them.

Moreover that vote would not endear you to the GOP who will simply argue that being part of Pelosi’s majority enabled the whole crooked impeachment business anyway.

So in my mind while you might make some hay out of such pressure I thought it wasn’t likely to work because there was no upside for a Democrat in such a situation so such Democrats might as well stand pat.

Well apparently there is a third option that frankly I hadn’t thought of but Democrat congress Jeff Van Drew did:

Impeachment is already backfiring on the Democrats even before the full House votes on two articles of impeachment. A Democratic member of Congress is preparing to switch parties, joining Republicans amid the Democrat-led impeachment effort that has put dozens of moderate Democrats in a tough position with their Trump-supporting constituents. 

Representative Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey has been in talks with top advisors for President Trump, according to The New York Times. Mr. Van Drew is concerned about losing his seat in the Democratic primary or in the 2020 general election. Van Drew’s district is a traditionally Republican district that voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. 

While there is a value in having a sitting Democrat vote against impeachment, there is a greater value for the GOP for a congressman to switch parties over the vote. It’s true that the Democrats would go all in to defeat him but given that activists would primary him and punish him for it anyway it a wise political move.

Suddenly instead of the GOP trying to beat him no matter how he votes and ad after add linking him to the squad, he suddenly becomes a rock star of the party. Money will pour in. The party in general and the White House in particular will go all in to protect and support him. I’d be shocked if Trump didn’t turn up himself to campaign for him in his district. Furthermore as very few new GOP congressmen were elected in the house last time around, if he wins re-election he’ll have two years seniority over any GOP candidate who wins a seat on the President’s coattails in 2020.

I must confess I didn’t anticipate this move. It will be a shock to the Democrat political system , and if others Democrats on the fence realize that this is likely their best chance on re-election Van Drew might not be alone.

Then it would become an earthquake!

Exit question: How much do you think the British Election results had on his decision.

Impeachment is Happening Here’s how it will likely go

Posted: December 3, 2019 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, elections, politics, primaries
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[Watching French Calvary deploy in front of them] Goodyear: What about it John Henry?

John Henry Thomas: Looks like we ourselves got mixed up in somebody’s else’s war.

Christian: Yeah Sure does.

Short Grub: What are we going to do now?

John Henry Thomas: Well that’s already been decided.

The Undefeated 1969

Because of the falling polls and the Wile-E-Coyote nature of impeachment there has been some speculation concerning if Democrats will in fact hold an impeachment vote and instead settle for censure.

Don’t count on it.

To be sure they will give it their best shot, in fact I suspect that the purpose of the scholarly witnesses that are going to be called before the judiciary committee’s primary job is not to justify impeachment but to provide the cover necessary for the Democrat votes against it.

Constitutionally Impeachment is a political process, not a judicial one and “high crimes and misdemeanors” are not defined so, it doesn’t matter if the best the Democrats can do is prove that Donald Trump had a nose bleed on the White House carpet, under the rules the Democrats have the right to impeach him for that if they they want.

Nancy Pelosi knows and understands this which is why she tried so hard to avoid open impeachment, particularly after the Mueller goose egg. But once the process had begun she understands that there is no turning back politically. The question is only the best way to do it.

If the Schiff hearings had moved public opinion it would be easy. She might have grabbed a republican vote or two and presented it , with the media’s help, this as a solemn decision to remove a corrupt leader.

But without limited public support, a booming economy, polls showing that minorities that are vital to the Democrat election plans moving toward Trump she is down to playing the best hand she has in the hopes that the GOP in general or the President in particular make a mistake.

Her best hand is to make the best possible case for “censure” and pol test it among Democrat activists. If somehow after the hearings this week poll results tell them they’ve convinced enough democrat fire-eaters that censure is a valid alternative to impeachment (very unlikely) she will go full bore on a cencure vote with every Democrat and perhaps even a stray republican will take place and the left will declare victory.

This would be the 2nd best case for the Democrats and the 2nd least likely which is to say it ain’t gonna happen because while it’s the party’s smartest move it requires woke activists in the party to see reason and reality.

Good luck there.

Of course there is always the remote possibility that the Democrats actually find something that IS impeachable enough to convince the public it’s worth doing or that the White House does something so egregious as to change the polling on impeachment. That’s the best case scenario for the left and the least likely for the reasons.

  1. If the Democrat/Left/Deep State HAD something of this nature, they would have produced it, or leaked it over the last three years
  2. All the evidence so far suggests that the only impeachable acts that have taken place were the previous administrations attempts to corrupt this election, too much deep state digging might uncover this fact.
  3. President Trump has demonstrated that however the left might paint him, he’s much too savvy to make that kind of mistake.

With God all things are of course possible and if this miracle falls into Nancy Pelosi’s lap she will happily accept it but she’s smart enough to not count on it.

Finally there is the chance that enough Democrats will rebel to force her to abandon impeachment although rather than risk a vote that fails. This isn’t going to happen either. It would be the most destructive result for the left and would practically invite primary opponents or at worst 3rd party challengers on an “Impeach Now!” platform. The Damage to the left from such a result would be worse than anything else.

So what WILL happen? Here is the sequence:

  1. Dems make their best case for censure backed up by their report and the scholars who give them cover for it.
  2. Swing state Dems argue strongly for censure saying that this is where the evidence has taken them.
  3. Pelosi after confirming that the fire-eaters will not settle for censure holds the impeachment vote and passes it with 219 Democrats, not a single one from a swing district. Said vote is delayed as long as feasible to discourage primaries from the left on Swing democrats voting “No”.
  4. Democrats do their best to beg borrow or steal enough votes to keep Election 2020 from becoming an electoral disaster and/or hope some event (say Ginsberg’s death) takes place that galvanizes Democrats to the point where they can pull it off.

This is how I see it happening, it’s basically their 2012 Obamacare strategy which was able to work because:

  1. Black votes couldn’t bear the thought of the 1st black president failing to be re-elected
  2. Race trumped faith among Black Christians
  3. The GOP managed to nominate the weakest candidate in their field one that not had pushed for a state version of Obamacare (that I’m still living under) but was unwilling or unable to fight back against anyone but his own base.

Alas for them this time they have a candidate that not only has a strong economy and has proactively reached out to minority Democrat voters but one that is willing to fight back relentlessly.

Bottom line, the Democrats have dealt themselves a bad hand but will play it out the best they can and hope they get lucky. That’s the smartest political move they have left and whatever else you might say about Nancy Pelosi, you can count on her to play the best hand she has, with the media’s help of course.

Update: After Wednesday’s clown car weaponizing the 1st Lady Pelosi has apparently decided to fast track this to minimize the chance of her team providing any more ad material for the GOP in the hearings.

She wants this over and done.

Net Rules, Hill Photo Blues, Beto bye Bye, Kamala Conventional Wisdom & McDonald’s Unconventional One, Under the Fedora

Posted: November 5, 2019 by datechguy in business, elections, oddities, politics, primaries, under the fedora
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There is only one thing that amazes me about the Katie Hill story. It’s the idea that she really believed that she could have nudes on the net and that nobody would notice.

Now I grant you, if she just thought nobody would care, she might have gotten away with it, but the concept that it would stay quiet is just silly.

Never forget that the internet is forever and anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool.

It’s been really funny watching the media try to spin Rep Hill’s resignation as a GOP hit job as if the party made her pose for those pictures and put them on the net. They forget that while folks in the bubble still might buy it, the actual story and the pictures are only a click away and that the sole narrative is no longer theirs.

I would have thought Matt Drudge would have taught them that decades ago but they’ve never gotten over it.

There are a lot of people who are laughing about Beto departure from the Presidential race, I’m not.

First of all Beto was extremely useful in that he said aloud the thing we all know and the left didn’t want said. With him out the left/media will do their best to pretend that others do not think like he does and such questions will not be in the debate. With him in the race that wasn’t possible.

But most important of all in the end every single democrat running for the nomination is going to lose except for one, so until it’s down to 3 or 4 candidate, the individual failures don’t mean a thing. So I don’t get excited about it, with one exception…

…that exception is Kamila Harris. Watching her fail has been an absolute pleasure, not just because she is a huge phony who slept her way to the top, but because she is the perfect illustration of the truth about conventional wisdom.

For a very long time everyone who “mattered” told us that Kamila Harris was the future and a lock for the nomination. the day she was elected it was considered Presidential prep. Her folding like a cheap suit demonstrates that conventional wisdom is always correct…right up until the moment that it’s not.

Finally speaking of the conventional wisdom, I began this piece at a McDonalds speaking with some elderly gentlemen when the manager going home came by to say hi. I struck up a conversation with him and discoveered two things I didn’t know.

  1. A slice of cheese costs them .32 when you factor in all the assorted costs.
  2. The Kiosks have led to him INCREASING rather than decreasing his staff.

That 1st fact wasn’t a big surprise but the 2nd really threw me off, I asked the manager why?

He said 1st of all we needed someone to service the tables because the Kisoks require delivery to the table and second of all the Kiosks, along with the various delivery services, increased business and orders to the point where they needed those extra folks for the cooking etc.

Now I don’t know if this is peculiar to the local McDonalds or not but I think it would be worth finding out, but assuming the manager is not blowing smoke I’d say it’s worth finding out on a larger scale.

Joe Walsh absolutely should not be taken seriously as a presidential candidate

Posted: November 3, 2019 by John Ruberry in Always look at the bright side of Trump, economy, elections, elections, politics, primaries
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By John Ruberry

While Da Tech Guy was technical hiatus, former Illinois Republican congressman Joe Walsh announced his presidential run, which is why I’m only now weighing in.

I’ve had mixed feelings over the years on Walsh, who was part of the GOP Tea Party wave in 2010 but was essentially gerrymandered out of office by Illinois Democratic Party boss Michael Madigan. His triumph, without any Illinois Republican Party financial support over Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean was a shocker, many people viewed his chances of winning as dismal because of a then-ongoing child support dispute with his ex-wife and a lawsuit, since settled, from his onetime campaign manager over fees he said were owed to him.

The only positive thing I heard during that 2010 race about Walsh was from my wife. She was thoroughly impressed by a speech he gave at a Tea Party event where I live, Morton Grove, Illinois. She predicted, “He’s going to win.”

Always listen to your spouse.

During his single term in Congress, for the most part I supported Walsh. I met him at a different Tea Party event and I was impressed that he was familiar with my blog, Marathon Pundit, and what I wrote about him. Still, I always thought he was a bit nutty. But that goes for many politicians of course.

Walsh seemingly found his place in 2013 after when Chicago conservative talk radio station WIND-AM hired him for its coveted afternoon drive-time slot. Early on his show was enjoyable and informative–regularly trashing President Obama on just about everything, including the economy. Salem Radio Network picked up his show for national distribution in 2017, while he was a third-tier talker, his future was still bright.

Then something snapped within Joe. If you are familiar with the 1970s movie, Network, like the mentally unbalanced TV anchorman Howard Beale, Walsh changed. Beale went from decrying big government and big business every night to preaching that the latter wasn’t really bad after all. Then Beale’s ratings dropped. As for Walsh, who was never completely on the Trump Train, earlier this year he began to sprinkle his program with bits of criticism of Trump–which quickly became a flood. I tuned out and so did many of my friends. How many others bailed? I dunno. WIND-AM stopped subscribing to Nielsen in 2016. I listen to other radio shows besides right-wing talkers, it’s a good idea to see what the other side is up to. But like Beale’s later performances, I felt I was being preached at by Walsh, not spoken to. Not fun. So on my way home from work I’d connect my iPod and listen to Mark Levin’s podcasts instead.

Since his announcement, Walsh has been struggling to get noticed, just as the other Republican challengers again Trump have. Those other candidates are another nut-job, former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, and former Massachusetts governor William Weld, the vice presidential candidate in 2016 on the Libertarian ticket.

Presumably because last week President Trump made his first appearance in Chicago since his election–not surprisingly he trashed the city–Fox 32 Chicago’s Mike Flannery interviewed him this weekend on his Flannery Fired Up program. Playing devil’s advocate, Flannery mentioned the “booming economy” and Friday’s strong jobs report, Walsh countered on the economy, “It was booming under Obama.” Which one is true, Joe? What you said this weekend about Obama, or your unilateral condemnations of Obama as president, including of course on the economy?

No one should take Walsh seriously as a presidential candidate.

And then there is this Tweet.

And then this one:

But we will still be hearing from Walsh every now and then; the mainstream media, which mocked him for years, fell in love with Walsh after he announced his campaign against Trump, I mean that he is running for president. With the anti-Trump media it’s all about hating the president.

Oh, I did say Walsh was “a bit nutty,” right?

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

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