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An Interesting Political Event

By December 16, 2021Commentary

Because of the blog I got a ticket to a forum or debate among the Republican candidates for Governor last nite, moderated by Hugh Hewitt, who is a first class intellect and decent human being.  Full disclosure, if I pick one ahead of time it is Sen. Gazelka, also a very decent human being, and I have helped several of the candidates on coronavirus.  I am, however, fundamentally a true free market libertarian.  Generally not an impressive performance by most of these people.  Mike Murphy is a small-town mayor who seems like a nice guy and clearly brings a common man perspective but would be lost as Governor, which honestly is a complex job.  Dr. Shah is clearly very smart but seems determined to find the best simplistic phrases that pander to emotional reactions and avoid deeper exploration of issues, which is hard in a minute and a half under the best circumstances.  And he made it clear that he thinks Sen. Gazelka is the frontrunner by constantly attacking him in a misleading way, and that isn’t a particularly smart strategy.  Dr. Jensen may have had an off night but he had difficulty putting together a coherent answer to most of the questions and strayed off to his talking points constantly.  Sen. Benson seemed a little lost, but her father just passed away, so that is understandable.  And Sen. Gazelka, having the best political resume, as you would expect seemed most acquainted with the issues and most familiar with how government functions.  I suspect any of them would be better than the IB, but it is hard to beat the teachers’ union machine that recycles taxpayer money into political donations for one party and is responsible for the complete collapse of any kind of decent education in Minnesota’s public schools.

But what I am most struck by is how most candidates, experienced politicians or not, simply cannot be honest about what they believe and just have to stick to pre-planned lines.  I think voters are fed up with this and it makes them distrust all politicians.  Here is the worst example.  The first question was about whether Presidementia Biden won the election and if not, which states were wrongly given to him.  Everyone of these people knows he did in fact get certified as the winner by the electoral college and almost certainly did win, notwithstanding shenanigans.  But they are so afraid of offending the Trump voters that they can’t say that straight out.  How about this–“Yes, Presidementia Biden won the election, but there clearly were and are issues with election integrity and we have to fix those issues.  And it doesn’t help us win future elections by constantly focusing on one that is done and over, we have to look forward and have a message that ensures that we win decisively in the next election.”  That would be both a more honest and compelling answer.  But apparently if you are running for office, treating the voting populace with respect isn’t an option.

Join the discussion 13 Comments

  • Joseph Lampe says:

    Endless debate about voter fraud in the 2020 election is not helpful. Mollie Hemingway’s book “Rigged” provides an in-depth look at the lowest integrity election in American history. Our task going forward is to ensure high integrity elections. Without integrity, elections are meaningless.

  • John Oh says:

    Your answer is a very good one. One of the consultants will see it, make his candidate use it, and then charge double for it. You, of course, will get the satisfaction of hearing your work plagiarized, but all to the good. Maybe you should add political consulting to your portfolio — it pays very well, you get to have tantrums, and there’s very little real work involved.

  • rob says:

    Honest politicians cannot get elected because they would have to admit that our problems can’t be solved without pain. People don’t want to hear that so they vote for idiots who either say the rich will pay for everything, or Mexico will pay for everything.

  • dell says:

    Minnesota Election:

    87 counties, 13 (15%) went for Biden. Nationally, about 16.5 % of U.S. counties supported Biden.

    The 74 supporting Trump often had majorities of 30% + for Trump.

    All but 2 of the other counties had Biden ahead by 3% – 4%. Very close all over Minnesota. Except 2 counties.

    Hennepin County, 70.1% and Ramsey County, 71.8% for Biden.

    St. Louis County (Duluth) 16% more for Biden. Maybe add Olmsted (Rochester) and Blue Earth (Mankato) where Biden led by a few %.

    The short of it is that the people in 2 counties determine Minnesota election outcomes. Their numbers are able to overwhelm the voters in the rest of the State, even as 30% of so support another candidate.

    An aside. I am not sure about Duluth but these are illegal alien sanctuary cities and also centers of mass refugees; all non-citizens. But they count in the Census and that means money flows and political power. The counting of these non-citizens was the reason North (South?) Carolina lost a House Seat that Minnesota otherwise would have lost. Minnesota had many people and meetings trying to get everyone and that means everyone counted. In the end wasn’t it 37 people counted that made the difference?

    Because of the arithmetic, it’s circular and unlikely to be stopped. Something like 32 Representatives in Congress represent non-citizens. Darn probably 1/3 of California! Indeed, those non-citizens can have babies and instant citizens and can overtime bring in their relatives, on average 4 – 6 more for each one. Citizens have no say in the matter and money and political power continually flows to the non-citizens.

    Shenanigans? The preceding is legal but morally questionable, and violates the essence of our Country.

    In addition to the above, the State spent $41 million trying to get people to register and vote.

    That too, was legal. But it was the leftist Governor and his departments that were involved. Groups had people knocking on their door asking if they were registered. If not, they would do it right then. Go the grocery store and the same was done. Telephone calls doing the same. At my door they were all from “rights” type organizations. No doubt they were focusing on left leaning areas, notably in the big cities.

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html

  • Barb says:

    The best way to not realize the big flip coming in 2022 is to endlessly dwell on this topic. It’s over. There are countless issues that are so obviously looking for solutions. Why is anyone still talking about the “stolen election?” I would like to see Kendall Qualls run for Gov.

  • Bob Harper says:

    Mr. Roche, your statement is a perfect distillation of the situation. Perhaps you should run–though I would not wish such a fate on my worst enemy 🙂

    I only recently discovered your site, but have found it extraordinarily useful in cutting through the “Science!” (TM) garbage proposed by, among others, Jay Inslee of Washington State. I live here, and love the location and the climate, but the woke are a real pain.

  • shannon says:

    Totally disagree. If we let misdeeds slide then things will never change. Gaetz got it right. ” If baseball teams cheat they give back their world title , if olympic athletes cheat they give back their gold medals and if candidates cheat they should give back their electoral votes. No way Biden won Wisconsin, Arizona or Georgia. You can’t keep saying oh it’s over we will fix it next time. The IRS can audit my taxes I should be able to audit the vote. I know it’s hard Minnesotans. Really Minnesotans should be ashamed of election integrity in this stale. I was raised better in the state next door. Don’t say I should move back my husband won’t go for that or I would.

    • Kevin Roche says:

      let what slide? people better get it through their heads that Biden is the President and stop re-litigating the same stupid issues over and over. You think that helps win the next election. The whacko progressives would love nothing more than for their opponents to keep harping on this. Drop it and move on to something productive, do something constructive to win the next election. you can’t do anything about the last one.

  • SteveD says:

    ‘Everyone of these people knows he did in fact get certified as the winner by the electoral college and almost certainly did win, notwithstanding shenanigans.’

    I believe that Arizona and Wisconsin recently conducted audits which determined that the number of problematic (potentially illegal) votes were in the tens of thousands, exceeded the margin of victory and that their results should not have been certified by their legislatures.That’s 21 electoral college votes subtracted from Biden’s total which would put him at 282 still above the number he needed to be elected. So yes, he is PONTUS.

    But that’s a lot of shenanigans. The fact that two states certified their results and later determined they really didnt know who won is very worrisome.

    • Kevin Roche says:

      I don’t think either state has done anything that definitively finds any such thing. In fact Arizona clearly said that the audit showed Biden won. I am not disputing the need for stronger laws and processes. But it is stupid to talk anymore about what happened in 2020. That doesn’t help with the next election.

  • J. Thomas says:

    A look at the national county voting map always gives me some peace-of-mind that our country is still fundamentally center-right. It’s obvious that the Dem’s only carry the areas with dense city populations because they have been generationally groomed to feed from the public trough which is far too risky to give up. At the end of the day, it’s voter apathy that leaves the door wide open for abuse of the process. You can’t have 40% of the population not vote and think that highly funded and organized groups are not going to exploit this.

    The RNC needs to get off its collective asses and start engaging people NOW for next year’s mid-terms. There are plenty of talking points to choose from with the current cast of degenerates in leadership positions, led by a failing mental patient and his tag team of socialists’.

    I do fully agree with a process of random audits where Election Officials get jail time for any negligent findings. The message has to be loud and clear that selling themselves out to one side or the other is a life altering decision with horrific consequences. If these are ‘sworn in’ state and county positions, that should be enough legal leverage to bring them down. The judiciary is the lynch-pin.

  • SteveD says:

    You may certainly be right that harping on the 2020 election is bad strategy but there is a tremendous problem with elections in many parts of this country and in particular Arizona. Close elections can be stolen. We should acknowledge the problem if we want to fix it.
    The hand recount of the actual ballets in AZ added a few hundred votes to Biden’s total so of course this is what the media reported. However, the audit also found tens of thousands of potentially illegal ballets were cast. That the count was correct doesn’t mean everything that was counted was legal. The good news is that the ballets themselves were not tampered with nor is there much evidence of systematic fraud. However weaponized incompetence?
    The audit results can be accessed here:
    Cyber Ninjas Report | azsenategopcaucus (azsenaterepublicans.com)
    It’s good to read the whole document but if you go to ‘Report Volume 3, and peruse the summary table (page 5), you can see that on the first line there were approximately 23, 344 mail-in votes cast from a prior address. The total of potentially illegal votes in that table is over 50,000. In most cases the audit was unable to determine how many of them or which ones were actually illegal vs merely potentially illegal. With the margin of victory being about 11,000 there is no way to say for sure who actually received the most legal votes.

  • John Oh says:

    The election is 11 months away. This is a lifetime in politics and everything could be upside down by next November. If you want to throw the bums out, volunteer for a campaign, contribute to a candidate, or help organize an issue campaign. Commenting on healthyskeptic doesn’t count.

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