That is, I hope you have if you had an important runoff where you live, in the primary in which you voted two weeks ago.
My wife and I went, and there was NO ONE else there but the poll workers.
I was just there to vote for Kathy Maness for Superintendent for Education. Not only because she’s the best qualified, but as a vote against the disgusting stuff I’ve gotten attacking her.
I hope she wins, even though the odds seem against it. If the people who voted for the other candidates — the ones who were eliminated two weeks ago — turn out today, it seems to me they’re more likely Weaver voters, which could enable her to overcome the front-runner.
On the other hand, folks who are disengaged to the point they can’t see Kathy Maness is the better candidate (and the only legally qualified one) tend not to show up for runoffs.
We’ll see.
I’ve got to run, but I urge you to read the last-minute editorial in The Post & Courier supporting Ms. Maness, which begins:
We don’t usually like to talk about campaigns in the immediate runup to the election. But the emails, postcards and TV ads that Ellen Weaver and her supporters distributed last week after her second-place finish in the Republican primary for S.C. education superintendent are the sort we’re used to seeing from duplicitously named out-of-state special interests — not what S.C. candidates are usually willing to put their own names on, especially not in primaries. And they demand a closer look….
Anyway, if you voted, let us know how it went…
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I voted. Turn out looked light though more people were coming in behind us. I hope you are wrong in your assessment that voters are showing up for Weaver. I know the teachers are in favor of Maness. Mick Zais and Barbara Nielsen, the two worst state superintendents ever, endorsed Weaver. I received this today from the Maness campaign. file:///var/mobile/Library/SMS/Attachments/a9/09/0F84A6B0-07A5-4DB0-B86C-244C1EF0DB94/jTyevE0-rnZWTRDCprKpz.3gp
The primary results show that the Republican Party’s slide ever further to the right continues. As a whole, the party is now politically on par with far-right parties in Europe. And with the close-run result in his race, party members like M. Caskey are unlikely to do anything to resist that trajectory. Not that many desire to anyway, since foregrounding culture war issues and appealing to fear, prejudice and resentment, embodied in bills and laws directed at sex, guns, race and education, among other topics, has become part of their stock-and-trade. The question is: Will those who claim to be part of the “vital center” of American politics support and encourage this shift by voting for these candidates? Will they, like the Republican base, be drawn to and endorse this expanding spectrum of extremism?
Retired Judge Luttig put it succinctly when he said that the former president, his supporters AND his party pose a clear and present danger to the country.
As long as people use hyperbolic language like “clear and present danger to the country”, those of us who are logical and clear headed will continue to ignore the chicken littles. How many times in the past five years did we hear: “This is it. This will bring down Trump!!!!!!!!” and then it turned out to be just some spin on an anonymous rumor — or worse, a coordinated attempt by Democrats to create the Russiagate hoax.
Instead of worrying about Trump, maybe Democrats should look inward and at their leadership to figure out why they are incapable of accomplishing anything they said they were going to do. The failure of the Democratic Party is self-inflicted.
As for Superintendent of Education, I didn’t vote for Weaver but now that she will likely win (because Democrats thought they could sneak in a Democrat on the Republican ticket), it should lead to more effort in making school vouchers happen. That is good news. The educrats have had plenty of time to fix schools their way. They failed to do anything even when spending 50% more per pupil than the state average in the worst districts. Time for a new approach that isn’t just “spend more money”. It’s worked in many states (Ohio for one). Let’s try it here. If it fails, we can go back to the terrible schools we already have.
Absolutely, Ken. Quit trying to mitigate the GOP’s authoritarian march by voting for “reasonable Republicans” who dare not repudiate a coup against our government or the lunatic leading it. Support candidates who support democracy, or be prepared to lose it. Appeasement and accommodation never work. See WWII.
(Doe-eyed Witch!)
The Jan 6 show/trial so far:
– Guiliani was drunk one time
– An aide to Meadows heard Trump assaulted a Secret Service officer and grab the steering wheel of the vehicle they were riding in (no actual confirmation this happened, just secondhand gossip)
– Trump has a temper and throws things
– Trump thought there were voting issues and tried to do what he could to get them audited
What other blockbusters am I missing? I mean ones that are based on actual evidence, not secondhand news?
You’re amazing, Doug. Your willingness to disbelieve and dismiss exceeds that of anyone I’ve ever known, I think…
This is the sad reflection of a miserable internet troll. I am sorry for you that you have to read and approve much of the crap that you do.
Thanks for keeping some of us enlightened, Brad.
Well, I certainly wouldn’t call Doug that. But he still has the capacity to amaze me with his refusal to budge.
And I don’t have to read and approve anything. Increasingly, these days, I don’t. As Doug and others can tell you. He and some others get kind of grouchy about it sometimes.
Anyway, I approved that one because I wanted to marvel at it…
“ Trump thought there were voting issues and tried to do what he could to get them audited”
To Correct Doug
Trump was told by his closest advisors there was no significant fraud, lies to everyone, and tried to use pressure to force a few state officials to declare him the winner illegally.
Where’s the crime, barry?
How many times in the past five years did you claim that Trump was going to be arrested?
I don’t think I’ve ever claimed he would be arrested. Maybe you can show me where i said he would be arrested.
Now, I’ve often hoped he would be arrested or resign or just disappear from the public square.
We can hope he is prosecuted and is punished
“ A more likely option for prosecution, said Jimmy Gurule, a former federal prosecutor who is a Notre Dame law professor, would be to pursue a case that Trump conspired to defraud the United States through his wide-ranging efforts to overturn the election and to obstruct the congressional proceeding at which the results were to be certified.”
https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-elections-crime-donald-trump-congress-8db6bd99f26d9969c4169530faed0f2b
Generally speaking, it’s a bad idea to talk about prosecuting presidents. There’s something disturbing, to me, about the idea of a president, duly elected, taking actions consistent with the reasons he was elected, and then being prosecuted because the political winds changed. Sure, the president could be doing things he was NOT elected to do, criminal things, such as happened with Watergate. But I’m not one of those people who get outraged over Jerry Ford pardoning Nixon. Nixon was gone, he was in no way a threat to the country or our politics, and the country needed to move one.
Of course, we have a different situation with Trump. Nixon was fully qualified and suited to the job of president. But he had character flaws that manifested as paranoia, which caused him to do things — behind the curtain — that were wrong. Which Trump we have a unique situation, qualitatively different from the situation with anyone else who ever held the office. We have someone who was painfully obviously unsuited to the position, someone who should never, ever have been considered, for even an instant, for such high office. The characteristics that made him unsuitable (and utter lack of any that would have made him suitable) were on clear display 24 hours a day. And it was those characteristics that led quite naturally to the actions for which people talk about prosecuting him.
The way to deal with — that is to say, prevent — this sort of situation is to make absolutely sure that no such individual is ever elected president to begin with. And yet he was, despite his gross defects being fully on display. And almost half of the country voted to re-elect him. And to this day, despite the way his defects exploded in our faces as he went, kicking and screaming, out the door, the Republican Party is in utter bondage to him.
He remains a clear and present danger. Unlike Nixon, from whom Republicans had turned away.
That argues for prosecution, as a way of eliminating the continuing threat to our country. BUT… prosecution implies that once convicted, the almost half of the country that supports him would change their minds, and things would settle down. But that wouldn’t happen, just as it didn’t happen when he was TWICE impeached. His supporters would regard him as a martyr to whatever dark cause made them vote for him in the first place.
And they’d be more ready to attack the Capitol than ever.
As I’ve said before, the problem isn’t Trump. It’s the sickness out in the electorate that caused so many people to vote for him. It’s whatever caused people to vote for someone who, at any previous point in our history, the electorate would have laughed off the stage.
That’s the problem that needs addressing. How, I don’t know. But that’s the problem…
Well, as I said, I hoped it would turn out well for all of us, but it didn’t. I had two theories about what might happen, and the first happened instead of the second.
So South Carolina is the loser. Again…
I voted absentee for Kathy as I am out of state.
My wife was disappointed. As a teacher, she disapproves of Weaver. But she is resigning so it won’t impact her.
Hiring teachers is an even bigger problem this summer than the last few. Her former school is having an awful time as she talked with her principal earlier this week about it.
When my wife went to vote, she said nearly everyone there was in their 60s and 70s. Other than some of her fellow teachers, there was no one she knows that voted.
Weaver and her Republican kin did a good job of scaring folks to death about non existent critical race theory and that teachers are teaching kids to be gay and trans in South Carolina. Many of these folks don’t hate anything as much as they ate gay people and the small few that have gender dysphoria.
The politics of fear and lies works well in South Carolina.
There ain’t no Pride in Lexington County…
Finally, Democrats have a candidate for Governor in Joe Cunningham who isn’t following the Sheheen/Smith boring playbook. He’s come out of the gate calling for term limits and age limits to end the “geriatric oligarchy” in SC… nothing could be more true — this state is where it is because the same people get voted in decade after decade even though they are mostly useless and frequently corrupt.
Plus Joe’s for full legalization of marijuana and sports betting.
I donated to his campaign and hope he beats good old boy Henry McMaster.