Biden Blowout in South Carolina

A note to SubscribeStar subscribers:  I will post an account of my recent trip to Universal Studios tomorrow, to make up for Saturday’s missed post.  I will try to have Sunday Doodles posted for $5 subscribers later today, probably this evening.  Thank you for your patience, and your support.  —TPP

The Democratic primaries continue to get more interesting.  First, Buttigieg surprised analysts with a near-victory in Iowa (in fact, I’m still unclear who actually “won” the caucuses there).  Elizabeth Warren took down Bloomberg on the eve of the Nevada caucuses, herself going down in flames in South Carolina.

There’s an echo there of former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie taking down a robotic Marco Rubio in the debate just before the 2016 New Hampshire primaries.  Christie had no chance of winning after New Hampshire, but he took Rubio down with him, exposing the would-be poster boy of the Republican Party as an overly-polished puppet.  Similarly, Warren’s aggressive attacks on Bloomberg was the screeching harpies way of clawing Bloomberg down with her.

Of course, unlike Rubio, Bloomberg has billions of dollars at his disposal, and has pledged to keep spending big.  That adds an interesting wrinkle, but I’ve held that Bloomberg is a very flashy red herring, and I’m not convinced he can buy primary victories.  Super Tuesday will tell us a great deal, but I think the only winner from Bloomberg’s campaign will be television networks and social media outlets making a bundle from ad sales.  I would love to get the commission on a Bloomberg ad buy.

Now, former Vice President Joe Biden has come back with a yuge win in South Carolina.  Like every armchair commentator with even a passing knowledge of the South and black people, I knew that Buttigieg would struggle here.  Black voters dominate the Democratic primaries in Southern States, and black people do not like gays.  But I didn’t expect that ButtiBoy would drop out after SC.

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TBT: Election Results 2019

We’re in the midst of primary season—the most wonderful time of the year, until you realize that one of these jokers could become president—so I thought I’d look back to the results from the 2019 elections.  That’s an off-year election, but there are some important lessons from then.

The post below, “Election Results 2019,” largely focused on the Lamar Town Council elections.  My strategy was to vote for the two challengers, because the town government really dropped the ball on doing routine DHEC water tests (although our mayor—bless her heart—has been trying to resolve the issue).  I also intuited that one of the challengers would likely be a Republican/conservative, for reasons too politically incorrect to write here.

The big takeaway from the 2019 election is that if you let Democrats gain a monopoly on power, they will abuse it immediately.  That’s been the story of Virginia, a once-deep-red State that has gone quite blue, due to the preponderance of progressive population poured into Northern Virginia.

The legislature wasted little time in promising to ban and confiscate guns en masse.  That act of totalitarian pique may very well turn the State red in November, as the Trumpian masses have been jolted from their slumber.

We shall see.  But the moral is clear:  don’t give progressives power.  And we have to assume that every Democrat is a progressive.  A conservative Democrat is a unicorn in 2020.  This message is for those squishy suburban moms and “decorum” obsessed NeverTrumpers who think they’ll enjoy political moderation under a Democratic regime.

Don’t make the same mistake twice.  Vote Republican/Trumpian/populist/nationalist/conservative/immigration patriotic this November.  Your country is counting on you!

Yesterday Lamar, South Carolina held elections for Town Council.  Since our local paper doesn’t seem to be putting the results online, I thought I would post them here.

I drove by Town Hall last night to check the results, but they were still working on finalizing the results when I drove by, and I lacked the will to drag myself out of the house again.  But I swung by this morning and photographed the official receipt from the machine, as well as the handwritten results (akin to a student council election), which were posted to the front door:

My strategy of voting for the challengers in a “Jacksonian spirit of rotation in office” failed, as the two incumbents sailed to reelection.  As such, Town Council is unchanged.

Nationally, Republicans dominated races in Mississippi and Kentucky, except for the Kentucky governor’s race, which the Democrats won in a squeaker.  They won in part due to the incumbent governor’s unpopularity, but also because of the Libertarian spoiler, who siphoned enough votes away from the Republican to cost conservatives the election by about 5000 votes.  Thanks a lot, Libertarians—you cost conservatism a gubernatorial election (which the Dems will hold up as proof that Trump is losing support) for… what?  Getting John Hick’s name in the papers?  We’re at war with progressives, and all you care about is smoking weed naked.

Unfortunately, Virginia has fallen completely to the Democrats.  That’s not too surprising, given the swamp creatures in northern Virginia, but it’s sad to see the ancient bastion of Southern liberty fall to big government apparatchiks.

That’s it for today—a quick public service post.  Hopefully the good folks of Lamar can get the results without having to drive downtown now.

Red Hot Smokin’ New Hampshire Nights

Last week saw the fiasco that was the Iowa caucuses.  Today the Democratic hopefuls head into the New Hampshire primaries, with Iowa’s results still murky.  It looks like Pete Buttigieg is sitting at thirteen delegates and Bernie Sanders at twelve, per Bing! search results.

After the pandemonium last week, I expect the New Hampshire primaries will run a bit more smoothly.  For one, they’re simple primaries, not Iowa’s convoluted caucus system, which requires voters to stand in parts of a room to represent their vote, then a reshuffling for candidates who don’t reach 15% support in the first round.

Indeed, at least one precinct—a very small town in New Hampshire that votes starting at midnight saw three write-in votes for Michael Bloomberg (out of a total of five votes).  I heard on the radio this morning that another small New Hampshire town cut for Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar.

For another, the Democrats have gotsta be scrambling for a good showing after Iowa.  Of course, the Democratic Party has never been known for its sobering self-reflection, so who knows how they might screw up this round.  If the allegations that they’re trying to block Bernie are true, there’s no telling what kind of shenanigans we could see tonight.

New Hampshire’s results should make for some interesting commentary and analysis tomorrow.  It’s looking like there’s a roughly 30% chance (again, per analysis I heard on the radio) of a brokered convention for the DNC (FiveThirtyEight puts it around 24%).

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Primary Season Preview

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

The presidential primaries are just a few weeks away, kicking off on February 3rd with the Iowa caucuses.  However, as Scott Rasmussen noted Thursday in his Number of the Day feature for Ballotpedia, early voting began yesterday in Minnesota, which doesn’t officially vote until Super Tuesday on March 3rd, one month into the process.  Voters in Vermont can begin voting (presumably for socialist Bernie Sanders) today.

Rasmussen poses the question:  what does all this early voting mean?  In a crowded Democratic field, where early wins in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina can boost or destroy a candidate’s chances, early voting could throw an interesting wrinkle into the mix.  I suspect most voters will wait, but we could have Minnesotans voting for their raging hometown sweetheart, Amy Klobuchar, only to see her withdraw after the early primaries.

Regardless, the primaries are a-comin’, so I figured it was time for a little pre-primaries preview.

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TBT: Election Day 2018

Two days ago I wrote about Election Day 2019, and posted results yesterday.  In selecting this week’s , then, I thought I would look back to November 2018 to see what I’d cooked up.

Boy, were the pickings slim.  Other than the post below, I reblogged my annual Thanksgiving message, and posted a Veterans’ Day talk I delivered to the local Republican Party.  I’d really let the blog slide as I dove into another busy school year.

It’s amazing how quickly time flies.  Not only did losing the House “stymie” President Trump’s agenda; they’re straight-up impeaching him—their plan all along.  We managed to hold onto the Senate, but by a slimmer margin than I hoped.  I also don’t trust Mitt Romney for a minute, so I think we can slot him in with the Democrats.

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Election Day 2019

It’s Election Day 2019!  I’m sure there are all sorts of interesting elections happening all over the country, but for me, the big election is right in my backyard, in little Lamar, South Carolina (which just got a website!).

Lamar is holding elections for two at-large Town Council seats.  There are two incumbents and two challengers, and the election is non-partisan (for what it’s worth, I cast my two votes for the challengers, in the Jacksonian spirit of rotation in office).

I like to vote early (though not often—that’s a federal crime, and since I’m not a Democrat or an illegal alien, I’d get in trouble for doing so), because I never know if I’ll be home by the time polls close.  Polling in South Carolina always runs from 7 AM to 7 PM, which is a pretty substantial window.  So, I was there right at 7 AM, and was the fifth person from my precinct to cast a ballot.

What was really surprising were the new voting machines, about which I have mixed feelings.

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