Category Archives: Elections

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“There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them,” said no Republican leader, ever.

Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin, an extreme supposed champion of the working class in 19th century France, purportedly said what serves as my headline, which came to my mind when I read this from Robert Stacy McCain:

Cast your mind back to November 2012, when you went to the polls to vote for Mitt Romney. Chances are, Mitt wasn’t your first choice for the GOP nomination. Probably, he wasn’t your second or third choice, either. You probably weren’t too excited to go vote for Mitt on Election Day 2012, and might not have been too optimistic about his chances of beating Obama, but you voted for him anyway, because he was the Republican nominee and you’re a Republican voter. If millions of conservatives could vote for Romney — who has always been a moderate, if not indeed a liberal — then why couldn’t moderate Republicans support Trump? Why is it that the demands of party loyalty seem to be a one-way street like this? And, by the way, shouldn’t it matter that Trump was far more popular and successful than GOP Establishment choices like Romney and John McCain? The Republican presidential candidates got about 60 million votes in both 2008 and 2012, but Trump got 63 million in 2016 and 74 million in 2020. Why such hatred from “Republicans” toward a man who increased the GOP vote by more than 10 million?

Think about what Donald Trump advocated to win the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. He advocated control of our borders, something every other Republican candidate did. He differed in one respect: he actually proposed a way to do it, building a wall along our border with Mexico, to make simply walking across the border far more difficult. He took strongly pro-life positions, as almost all of the other Republican candidates did. He advocated tax cuts, as all of the other Republican candidates did.

What was different about Mr Trump? He spoke in terms that the Republican primary voters saw as not just mouthing platitudes, but believed that he would actually do something to achieve the goals he set forth.

The result? We saw thousands of supposed Republicans marshal against him, including both the elder and younger President Bush, the ‘neo-conservatives’ like Bill Kristol, Max Boot, the subsequently scandal-ridden “Lincoln Project,” and, sadly, Patrick Frey. Mr Trump used strong, strong, language, and he wasn’t a particularly nice guy, but the great mass of Republican voters saw in him someone who would actually fight for the things he advocated. It helped that Mr Trump was running against the wholly uninspiring Hillary Clinton, and he flipped stated like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin red. The Keystone State, despite normally being called a ‘battleground state,’ had not been carried by a Republican presidential candidate since 1988.

The nation was stunned, and the Republican ‘leadership’ were most particularly stunned. How could this boorish brute win the presidency? I mean, the guy couldn’t even be bothered to button his suit coat during his inauguration!

The Republican ‘leadership’ would have been much happier had they lost the election with Jeb Bush as the nominee, than win it with Donald Trump. My guess is that they’d have rather lose the election with Jeb Bush than win it with Ted Cruz as well, because Mr Cruz can be a bit on the bull-in-a-china-shop side himself.

But the Republican voters loved Mr Trump, even if the ‘leadership’ did not.

And so we come to Representative Liz Cheney Perry(R-WY). Mrs Perry, who did not respect her husband, Philip Perry, enough to take his name, but to whom I will not show a similar disrespect, decided that President trump should be impeached, even as his term was coming to an end, due to the college-keg-party-gone-wild that is the Capitol kerfuffle. More, she allowed herself to be appointed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to the committee to investigate the kerfuffle, when Mrs Pelosi would not accept the Republican members nominated by the House Minority Leader. Mrs Pelosi wanted a kangaroo court, and got one, with a couple of pro-impeachment Republicans for window dressing.

In 2020, not only did President Trump carry Wyoming, but by percentage of the vote, the Cowboy State was his strongest state; he defeated former Vice President Joe Biden 193,559 (69.94%) to 73,491 (26.55%). The same voters who gave the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney 68.56% of the vote in her 2020 re-election campaign gave Mr Trump even more votes, 193,559 to 185,732.

Back to Mr McCain:

Tuesday, I said that Liz Cheney might lose by a 30-point margin, which was wrong — it was 38 points! She lost more than 2-to-1 and didn’t even get 30% of the vote in Wyoming’s Republican primary. Her contempt for the electorate — her fathomless hatred for Republican voters — was expressed quite clearly in her concession speech:

“The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and House before he won the most important election of all,” she said before an audience of what few supporters she has. “Lincoln ultimately prevailed. He saved our union, and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history.”

Hardly finished with her delusional Civil War era comparisons, Cheney went on to equate her ongoing fight with former President Donald Trump to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant during the Battle of the Wilderness.

“As the fires of the battle still smoldered, Grant rode to the head of the column. He rode to the intersection of Brock Road and Orange Plank Road, and there, as the men of his army watched and waited,” Cheney said. “Instead of turning north back towards Washington and safety, Grant turned his horse south toward Richmond and the heart of [Confederate Gen. Robert E.] Lee’s army. Refusing to retreat, he pressed on to victory.”

That scene, portrayed vividly in Bruce Catton’s A Stillness at Appomattox, indeed captures what made Grant different from any of his predecessors commanding the Army of the Potomac, who had a habit of getting into a fight with Lee, losing thousands of men in a battle, and then retreating to the fortifications of Washington. But how does it function as an analogy for Liz Cheney’s defeat? That is to say, who is the enemy she proposes to defeat if she presses “on to victory”?

Do you get the point? The enemy is you, the Republican voter!

This is the part that’s important: the Republican Party, like any political party, is made up of the mass of Republican-registered or identifying voters, but for Mrs Perry, for the (supposedly) Republican #NeverTrumpers, for the disaffected neoconservatives, what the vast majority of the Republican Party want is not only not what they want, but what is anathema to them. As I said, they’d rather lose with a polite milquetoast than win with a strong fighter.

The problem for them is simple, even if they don’t understand it: the mass of the Republican Party have moved beyond them. Mrs Perry has made noises about running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, but look how the left view them:

As I have noted previously about Bill Kristol and the “Lincoln Project”, the left may look upon them as useful for the moment, but they’ll never actually trust them, while Republicans will never trust them either. Mr Kristol destroyed the opinion magazine he founded, The Weekly Standard, by refusing to allow any articles which supported President Trump, thus alienating a significant portion of his readership, still supports a few, few! conservative positions, positions which are anathema to the Democrats. Given the opinions of some of them, like Max Boot and Mr Kristol, to force people to take the COVID-19 vaccines, the Libertarian Party won’t want to have anything to do with such authoritarians, either. They have nowhere to go!

This is, in the end, a good thing. The mass of the Republican Party have moved toward populism, an ideology which holds that the great mass of the people are not being seriously listened to by the political elites. There’s some of that in the Democratic Party as well, as exemplified by the ridiculous “Occupy Wall Street” movement and some of their far-left but nevertheless back-bench politicians like the anti-Semitic squadristi,[1]The group of ‘progressives’ elected to the House of Representatives in 2018 called themselves the ‘Squad.’ Squadristi, or Squadrista in the singular form, is one of the Italian names given to … Continue reading but, at least thus far, the left of the Democratic Party have nevertheless fallen into line with the (purportedly) more moderate elements to support President Biden.

The Republican elites are looking for their people, so they might lead them, but the mass of the party have no interest in being led along the garden path of squishy go-along-to-get-along Republicanism. They want leaders who will fight, who will fight the left, and that’s why Mrs Perry lost.

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↑1 The group of ‘progressives’ elected to the House of Representatives in 2018 called themselves the ‘Squad.’ Squadristi, or Squadrista in the singular form, is one of the Italian names given to Benito Mussolini’s Blackshirts, his paramilitary/thug force in fascist Italy. I think referring to the ‘Squad’ as Squadristi is completely appropriate.
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Latina Republican Mayra Flores flips Texas 34th District seat to GOP; The New York Times is aghast!

Rep. Mayra Flores (R-TX 34), from her campaign website. Click to enlarge.

Yes, it was ‘just’ a special election, and yes, Mexico-born Mayra Flores will only hold the seat until the beginning of January unless she wins the general election in November, but this could well be a sign of things to come. From The New York Times:

Republicans flip a Democratic-held House seat in South Texas, at least for now.

by Jennifer Medina | Tuesday, June 14, 2022

A U.S. House district in South Texas will send a Republican to Congress for the first time in its 10-year history.

Mayra Flores, a Republican and respiratory-care health aide, scored a significant victory in a special election on Tuesday for the party, which has been trying to capitalize on its successes in 2020 in the Democratic stronghold of the Rio Grande Valley. She will be the first Latina Republican from Texas in Congress.

Ms. Flores defeated three opponents in the special election to replace former Representative Filemon Vela, a Democrat who retired this year before the end of his term. She captured more than 50 percent of the vote in Texas’ 34th Congressional District, according to The Associated Press, and will avoid an expected runoff with Dan Sanchez, a Democrat and former commissioner in Cameron County.

Her win may only be temporary, however.

The special election was held to determine who would fill the remainder of Mr. Vela’s term until the end of this year. Voters in the general election in November will decide who will become the district’s permanent representative beginning in January. Representative Vicente Gonzalez, who currently represents a neighboring district, is the Democratic nominee for November, and is widely favored to win the race against Ms. Flores, who is also running to fill the seat permanently in November.

It isn’t difficult to see how the Times is trying to downplay her victory, but note: she won outright, avoiding what the Times called “an expected runoff” election.

Republicans have directed enormous sums of money and attention to the race in recent weeks, seeking an early victory in a district that includes the border city of Brownsville. Ms. Flores raised 16 times the amount of money that Mr. Sanchez did. And she and her allies have spent more than $1 million on television advertisements, while Democrats have largely stayed off the air.

Republicans believe they have found an ideal candidate for the region in Ms. Flores, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico as a young child. Her parents spent years working as migrant farmworkers in Texas. She is the wife of a Border Patrol agent and has campaigned on strict immigration enforcement in the overwhelmingly Mexican American district.

Say what? A Mexican-born immigrant, yet she favors “strict immigration enforcement,” and she won in a heavily Latino district? From her campaign website:

Mayra Flores was born and raised with humble beginnings in Burgos Tamaulipas, Mexico. Her parents and grandparents raised her with strong conservative values and to always put God and family first. She came legally to the United States at six years old with the help of her father. Her father gave her family the biggest gift, the gift of becoming a proud, naturalized American Citizen.

She and her family immigrated to the United States legally! That’s what Republicans support, that’s what I support!

Her parents were migrant workers, and like all migrant kids, she moved a lot growing up. She spent most of her life in the Rio Grande Valley and in 2004, she graduated high school in San Benito, TX. Growing up, Mayra worked alongside her parents in the cotton fields in Memphis, TX to earn extra money for school clothes and supplies. Instilling the value of hard work and the importance of education in her at a young age, Mayra remains a firm believer in the American Dream and will always fight so that others can achieve it as she has. She is eternally grateful to her parents for providing her with an opportunity to come to this amazing country to live the American Dream. Mayra graduated in 2014 as a Respiratory Care Practitioner with the support of her family. She currently works caring for the elderly and disabled with chronic respiratory issues and has been on the front lines helping patients combat COVID-19. She continued her studies and graduated with a Bachelors in Organizational Leadership from South Texas College. Mayra currently serves as the Hidalgo County GOP Hispanic Outreach Chair and has played a critical role in growing and maintaining Republican support across South Texas. She believes that having a strong relationship with the community and understanding the needs of each individual should be a requirement for any political candidate.

Mayra believes in fortifying our legal immigration system, in securing our borders, lowering the costs of healthcare, lowering taxes, promoting small businesses, and less government. She is a Pro-Life, Pro-Second Amendment, and Pro-Law Enforcement candidate that wants to earn your vote. She is a proud U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) wife and a mother, fighting for a better future for the children of South Texas.

One of her campaign yard signs.

Her campaign issues page is a bit more specific, though admittedly not much. Nevertheless, she supports our Second Amendment rights, law enforcement, border security, and Texas’ business-friendly regulatory environment to help create businesses and new jobs. More, she stated, “My Christian faith[1]Apparently Catholic, though her biography page does not so specify. is a core part of who I am. My parents raised me to be a strong woman of faith and defending individuals religious liberties will always be a priority of mine.” That, for me, is hugely important.

For what more can a conservative ask?

Times reporter Jennifer Medina had warned the Democrats that this might be coming:

How Immigration Politics Drives Some Hispanic Voters to the G.O.P. in Texas

Former President Donald J. Trump’s brand of populism has been widely viewed as an appeal to white voters. But similar grievances have resonated in the Rio Grande Valley in a profound way.

by Jennifer Medina | Monday, February 28, 2022 | Updated: Tuesday, March 1, 2022

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Mayra Flores, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, has done much of her campaigning in South Texas in Spanish. She has heard one phrase repeatedly from voters as she and other candidates try to become the first Republicans to represent the Rio Grande Valley in Congress.

¿Y nosotros?

And what about us?

“I hear every day that they’re tired — they feel that there is so much attention and help being given to the immigrants,” Ms. Flores said. “The attention’s on all these illegal immigrants, and not on them.”

The author then tells us how horrible that is!

Grievance politics, it turns out, translates.

Donald J. Trump’s brand of populism has been widely viewed as an appeal to white voters: Republicans around the country continue to exploit the fear that the left is attacking religious values and wants to replace traditional white American culture with nonwhite multiculturalism. But similar grievances have resonated in the Rio Grande Valley in a profound way, driving the Republican Party’s successes in a Democratic stronghold where Hispanics make up more than 90 percent of the population.

And why is that?

The difference is in the type of culture believed to be under assault. Democrats are destroying a Latino culture built around God, family and patriotism, dozens of Hispanic voters and candidates in South Texas said in interviews. The Trump-era anti-immigrant rhetoric of being tough on the border and building the wall has not repelled these voters from the Republican Party or struck them as anti-Hispanic bigotry. Instead, it has drawn them in.

“Our parents came in a certain way — they came in and worked, they became citizens and didn’t ask for anything,” said Ramiro Gonzalez Jr., a 48-year-old rancher from Raymondville, on the northern edge of the Rio Grande Valley. “We were raised hard-core Democrats, but today Democrats want to give everything away.”

Mrs Flores parents were also Democrats, but she became a Republican due to her strong prolife views. In a mid-term election in which the Democrats are expected to fare poorly, you can expect them to hammer hard to get the Latino vote, but Mrs Flores’ victory tells us something good: the left cannot count on that, and may not win it at all.

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↑1 Apparently Catholic, though her biography page does not so specify.
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When you’re a desperation candidate, you might as well take desperation shots!

I follow former state Representative Charles Booker (D-43rd District, Louisville) on Twitter not because I like him, but because he is a candidate, and now the Democratic nominee, to challenge Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) in the general election. Mr Booker, who ran for the Democratic nomination to challenge Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in 2020, but lost a tightly contested primary to Amy McGrath Henderson, was running to Mrs McGrath’s left, as the ‘progressive’ candidate. He hasn’t changed that a bit.

Knowing that he’s running, at the most charitably, an uphill campaign, or, perhaps most realistically, a sacrificial lamb one, Mr Booker is taking wild, long-range three-point shots in the hope of somehow catching up to Dr Paul.[1]I almost typed ‘Hail Mary’ shots, but I would never use a Catholic comparison, in any way, with regard to a candidate who supports abortion. It should be noted, that, as a Kentuckian, I … Continue reading The latest is shown in this tweet.

Mr Booker’s new campaign ad is all about lynchings in the past, and he claims that three of his uncles were lynched. But while lynchings have occurred, they are very much in the past. Even the Lexington Herald-Leader, which endorsed Mr Booker against Mrs Henderson in 2020, and which will endorse him again for the general election, because the editors are both stunningly liberal and out of tune with their readership, noted just how “striking” and “unconventional” the ad is: Continue reading →

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↑1 I almost typed ‘Hail Mary’ shots, but I would never use a Catholic comparison, in any way, with regard to a candidate who supports abortion. It should be noted, that, as a Kentuckian, I worked in a basketball metaphor.