Big Picture, 2022 Midterm Elections Highlight the Distinct Difference Between Ballots and Votes

Republicans have focused on persuading voters.  Democrats have focused on collecting ballots.  It's why stroke victims who can't speak (Fetterman) and candidates who won't debate (Katie Hobbs) win elections.  The winner is the one with more ballots, not the one bringing voters to the polls.

Why Republicans are not preparing for elections with this in mind shows - in no uncertain terms - that they have a serious problem.  They are throwing money at consultants that don't care whether their candidates win or lose.   The GOP’s Political Consultant Problem

 As the political discussion centers on the 2022 wins and losses from the midterm election, one thing that stands out in similarity to the 2020 general election is the difference between ballots and votes.  It appears in some states this is the ‘new normal.’

Where votes were the focus, the Biden administration suffered losses.  Where ballots were the focus, the Biden administration won.

Perhaps the two states most reflective of ‘ballots’ being more important than ‘votes’ are Michigan and Pennsylvania.  Despite negative polling and public opinion toward two specific candidates in those states, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman achieved victories.

Whitmer and Fetterman were not campaigning for votes, that is old school. Instead, the machinery behind both candidates focused on the modern path. The Democrat machines in both states focused on ballot collection and ignored the irrelevant votes as cast.

Since the advent of ballot centric focus through mail-in and collection drop-off processes, votes have become increasingly less valuable amid the organizers who wish to control election outcomes.  As a direct and specific result, ballot collection has become the key to Democrat party success.

The effort to attain votes for candidates is less important than the strategy of collecting ballots.

It should be emphasized; these are two distinctly different election systems.

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When ‘ballot organization’ becomes more important than ‘vote winning,’ you modify your electoral campaign approaches accordingly.  It might sound simplistic, but inside the distinct difference between ballots and votes you will find why refusing debates is a successful strategy.

If you are trying to win votes you could never fathom campaign success by refusing to debate an opponent.  However, if your focus is centered around ballot collection, the debate is essentially irrelevant.

PRINCIPLES ARE A GRAND THING – A GUEST POST – BY JOHN RINGO

 Nobody has been afraid of the Republicans in my LIFETIME. Lois Lerner can laugh at a congressional committee the Republicans are running and gets away with it. Strosz can smirk and preen. Bureaucrats and businessmen flat out lie to Republican leadership and nothing happens.

But they don’t do that to Democrats. Why?

Because if you do, the Left will kill you. They will f’ing DESTROY YOU.

See Joe the Plumber or any number of other examples of ‘nobodies’ that were destroyed for questioning the Left.

So why doesn’t the Right (metaphorically) kill people who disrespect their leadership? Why do the bureaucrats and businesses think they can screw over the Right but not the Left?

PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

The PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! crowd has been a Conservative Surrender Chorus for as long as I can remember.

You can’t attack a bureaucracy that is treating Republicans like something under their shoe! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

You can’t cut funding to academia just because they’re tweeting #KillAllRepublicans. PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

You can’t smack down a company that involves itself, overtly and partisanly, in politics! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

....

Take the high road.’ ‘If you get into the mud with a pig you get covered in mud and only the pig enjoys it.’

If you take the high road, you’re silhouetting yourself and you’re just going to get shot.

If you don’t get in the mud with the pig, it takes you out at the knees and gores nine kinds of stuff out of you.

But PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

Which got us to here. Teachers are openly grooming kids and convincing them they’re… something they are not. Children are being permanently chemically castrated for kicks and money. Two weeks to flatten the curve turned into two years of random medical tyranny. The sitting President that most represented the Right, far more than the eGOP, was investigated over a hoax THAT THE FBI KNEW WAS A HOAX.

The list goes on and on.

We’re in the bunkers, being pounded by artillery. Every time some leader on the Right tries to break out, tries to rally the troops, they get bombarded by fire from every direction.

Reagan was constantly bombarded. Newt to the point he was destroyed. Tea Party was taken out by investigations and the IRS refusing to process their paperwork. Then the leadership was audited to death.

We could fight that. We could rally round a flag. But the worst part. The part that is absolutely INFURIATING, is the Surrender Chorus.

YOU CAN’T FIGHT BACK! THAT’S ICKY! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

Stay in the bunker. Learn to cope. The dinner parties are loverly.

I’m sick to death of the principles crowd. David French, leader of the Conservative Surrender Chorus, once tweeted “If I supported Trump, I’d never be invited to another dinner party.”

If your politics is based on whether you get invites to dinner parties, you don’t have ‘Principles’. You have the opposite.

...

But the worst part. The absolute worst. Is the TrueConservatives that every time we start to take a position quite frankly stab us in the back shouting PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

If you’re more worried about PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! than @libsoftiktok being doxed, if you’re more worried about PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! than a mulit-billion dollar supposedly ‘family friendly’ corporation with loads of largesse given to it by the taxpayers coming out, very publicly, in favor of chemical castration of children…

Then you can take those principles and shove them where the sun don’t shine.

Where is the outrage? Part 3

 

The Biden administration is a disloyal government that over and over has genuflected to America’s enemies and betrayed the American people, endangering their lives and the security of the nation. But while the whole Democrat Party goes along with these anti-America policies and the catastrophes they create, instead of holding them to account GOP leaders are playing their usual feckless roles, wasting their opportunity to nail the incompetent and disloyal president, along with his entire rotten administration to the wall.

Thus, House Minority Leader McCarthy has refused to move forward on Biden’s impeachment. McCarthy admitted that the Afghanistan rout was “probably the biggest failure in American government on a military stage in my lifetime.” “Probably”? McCarthy also called for “accountability.” But what kind of accountability does he have in mind if he won’t hammer home the horrific actions Biden has taken. And what kind of accountability is he seeking if he won’t move to remove Biden and his enablers from office?

Every Republican should be shouting Impeach Biden! Impeach Harris! Impeach Blinken, Pelosi and Schumer! Also: Court Martial the Joint Chiefs of Staff! who were busy imposing Critical Race Theory on the troops and witch-hunting conservatives in the ranks, when they should have been planning the Afghanistan retreat.

Many Republicans, including their leaders, who don’t understand the political war that Democrats are waging against them, think this is a bad idea. They think: even if Biden could be impeached, that would leave America in the cackling grip of President Kamala Harris. This is the type of thinking that accounts for the passivity of Republicans while Democrats are always fighting an aggressive war against them.

Nancy Pelosi spent four years attempting to impeach Trump on transparently bogus charges. Did this hurt Democrat polling despite its embarrassments, or did it help Democrat efforts to tar and feather Republicans and increase Democrat support? Nancy Pelosi is not going to impeach Biden or anyone else. But the American people need to hear what these Democrats are guilty of and calling for their impeachment is the way to do it. Impeach them betraying the American people, endangering their lives and the lives of their children. This is how Democrats would conduct their political war if the roles were reversed. Republicans need to wake up and take the war to the enemy camp.

Meanwhile, as Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy sleeps American patriots are on the move.

Dozens of flag officers have signed a letter by Flag Officers 4 America calling on Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley to resign.

Republican leaders did nothing to protect some of our finest officers, like Lt. Colonel Matt Lohmeier, from being sacrificed on the altar of critical race theory when the incompetent military brass fired them. They did nothing to stand by whistleblowers like Lt. Col. Scheller. Will they re-think the costs of their silence and decide to stand by these officers?

Members of the Freedom Caucus, led by Rep. Clay Higgins, have introduced resolutions calling for Biden, Austin, and Milley to resign. Freedom Caucus members Rep. Norman and Rep. Harris have an impeachment resolution for Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Will McCarthy back these resolutions or continue offering hollow promises of “accountability”?

Where are the GOP leaders willing to fight for them by taking the fight to Biden, to his cronies and stooges, from Kamala Harris to Lloyd Austin, Antony Blinken, and Mark Milley? Lt. Col. Scheller threw away his military career to tell the truth. What’s House Minority Leader McCarthy risking? A few corporate donations? The respect of the D.C. establishment?

Looking for an Argument - Mark Steyn on the Do Nothing GOP

 One of Mrs Thatcher's great insights was: First you win the argument; then you win the election.

To win the argument, you have to make it. In the Westminster system, you make the argument for three or four years, then you have a six-week election campaign. That's when the system's functioning, which it certainly wasn't under, say, Andrew Scheer's Tory leadership in Ottawa.

But, even when it's not functioning, somebody's making an argument. Thus the fatal miscalculation of David Cameron when he decided that the Brexit referendum would be the best way to put the EU issue to bed once and for all. By then every electorally viable political party - from the Tories to Sinn Féin - was "pro-Europe". Nigel Farage had been making the argument for twenty years, but, because he had no real political party to advance it, it didn't get him anywhere at UK general elections. So, the minute Cameron called a referendum on Nigel's issue in splendid isolation, it gave Farage a shot at the second half of Maggie's great formulation: He'd won the argument; and Cameron delivered up a mechanism that allowed him to win the vote.

In the American system, it is, as the Brits say, arse over tit: As Monty Python once asked, where's the room for an argument? There are no parliamentary debates, so you never see a Dem senator going at it with a GOP senator. Even more strikingly, there are a bazillion political talk shows, none of which ever features a Dem senator going at it with a GOP senator - the way that even the most despised BBC, CBC, ABC yakfests routinely feature opposing legislators debating health care or the Irish backstop or Covid response.

Mark Steyn on why "GOP Inc." is such a loser!

Steyn wrote this when Trump was campaigning for the Republican nomination.  It's amazing how true it is, how much has changed and how much change is still needed.

If the national GOP is a vehicle for ensuring that John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have a car and driver and a Gulf emir-sized retinue, then it's very effective. If it's a vehicle for advancing conservative principles, then it's a rusted-up lemon on cinder blocks. At an event with Newt Gingrich about a decade ago, one of my neighbors asked why the Republicans were so ineffectual. Newt said it was because they're still getting used to being the majority party. Somebody responded, "So the Iraqis are supposed to get the hang of self-government after six months, but the Republican Party still can't manage it after ten years?"

For many conservative voters, 2014 was the GOP's last chance, and they blew it. For those conservative voters whose priority is immigration, 2016 is America's last chance, and Trump's the only reason anyone's even talking about that.

Learn To Play By The Rules Of Politics So Democrats Can Destroy The Country

Satire by Andrew Klavan:

If there’s one thing that’s important for every American to know, it’s how to play by the rules of politics. Playing by the rules allows you to maintain an atmosphere of civility and dignity while the Democrats run roughshod over every norm of behavior and destroy everything good and true about America.

So let’s learn some of the rules.

When someone completely unassociated with Donald Trump produces a video in which Trump shoots his enemies in the Democrat Party and the media, it proves that Trump is degrading public discourse and inspiring violence.

When a sportswear company puts an enormous billboard in Times Square showing a woman tying Trump up and stomping on the president’s face, then it’s time to buy some new sportswear.

When Arizona’s lady Governor Jan Brewer pointed a finger at President Barack Obama and told him she needed some border security, that was called “Fingergate” and was an example of Brewer’s racist disrespect for our first black president – who, did I mention, was black?

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stuck out her finger at Donald Trump, that was an example of feminist independence and courage and time to buy some new sportswear and stomp on the president’s face.

When Barack Obama’s Justice Department and Intelligence Agencies spied on the opposing party’s campaign, that was our heroic deep state protecting Americans from their incorrect decisions.

When Donald Trump suggested Ukraine examine corruption that might include opposition candidate Joe Biden, that was worse than Watergate in which a president spied on the opposing party like Barack Obama did to Trump.

Finally, when the news media lie and distort in order to support a deep state coup, that’s freedom of speech. When Americans speak out freely against the media’s corruption, that endangers the First Amendment.

You must follow these rules carefully or else you could wake up and find yourself telling a power-obsessed bunch of baby-killing Communist Democrats and media to kiss your butt and then go straight to hell.

And we wouldn’t want that.

The obliviousness of Allahpundit

What’s fascinating is to see the reaction of the Never Trumpers.


A tweet by Never-Trumper Allahpundit asks why Trump continues to “flog” Biden. “It helps Democrats; Biden is already slipping in the polls and seems unlikely to win; even if Biden does win, Trump could revive this next year.”

And there you see the viewpoint of the Never-Trumpers. They view Biden’s corruption through a lens of politics. They agree with the Democrats and the rest of the media that Trump is doing this for purely political reasons. They never actually entertain the idea that Trump is really trying to expose high-level political corruption in DC; that he’s actually working to drain the swamp.

That’s because when you’re part of the swamp, political corruption is perfectly normal.  They're so much part of it that the only reason they can imagine for accusing someone of corruption is to gain a political advantage over a political foe.  To Allahpundit and the shrinking cadre of Never-Trumpers, it's inconceivable that anyone would actually want to expose corruption for the purpose of ridding the nation of corruption.  


 They think that political office naturally leads to great wealth ... like it does in Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela ... and the rest of the Third World.  It's a perk of office; a payoff for being an elected official who's base pay is modest by corporate standards.  

They see the evil and are perfectly fine with it.

The Rick Moran problem.

The country has a Rick Moran problem.

Rick Moran has a column in PJ Media, generally considered a right-leaning source. He recently wrote about Stephen Miller’s appearance with Chris Wallace. Moran called the interview “contentious” and accused Miller of seeking to “alter the media narrative” about the call President Trump made to Ukrainian President Zelenski. 

There is no question that Moran is right. Because the media narrative is a lie.  And making a desire to correct the media narrative an accusation is to make the implicit assumption that the media narrative is the correct one.  That's the Rick Moran problem. 

Here's the essential Moran problem, pre-emptive surrender. Putting up a white flag before a shot is fired; classic Cuckdom.  It is emblematic of the losing Republican position.  The media sets the narrative and Republicans bleat "I'm not .... whatever the Democrats accuse me of."  The classic loser posture of cowering in the face of the people who hate you and want you slinking away in fear.

Moran writes: To my mind, it isn't a question whether Trump was putting pressure on Ukraine to get dirt on Joe Biden and his son. He was.

In the Wallace interview Miller directly refutes Moran’s point. “Digging up dirt” implies a nefarious motive. Is it uncovering the facts or a quest for the truth? Is a detective investigating a murder suspect “digging up dirt?” Is trying to find out why the son of the Vice President got paid several million dollars for a no-show job a not-so-subtle bribe of a high government official?

Here's more of the Rick Moran problem.  From Moran's perspective, Trump is presumed guilty of whatever crime his enemies accuse him.  From Moran's perspective, he's not trying to drain the swamp.  He's not the chief law enforcement officer seeking to root out corruption at the highest level; he's a sleazy politician "digging up dirt" on a political opponent.   In Moran's mind it's not even a question; it's his default position and I doubt if there are any facts that will shake that position.

This is why Washington DC is a hot mess of corruption.  Why politicians of modest means arrive in this cesspool of corruption  and leave wealthy.  It's why Hillary knew she could get away with soliciting bribes to her foundation and erasing the evidence on her computer.  It's why the Bidens were able to get Ukrainians to pay millions and the Chinese to make billion-dollar deals with barely a fig leaf to cover up their play-for-pay scam.  Republicans and their few "friends" in the media are really not interested in changing things.  They want to get in on the action.  Offer Rick Moran a column in the NY Times or the Washington Post and he will write column after column denouncing Trump and the people who voted him into office.  If you doubt this you have only to read the "conservative" columnists like Max Boot or Jennifer Rubin in either paper.

Let’s say that instead of Hunter and Joe Biden, we have Jimmy and James Smith. Jimmy gets a no-show job working for a Ukrainian company while James Smith is a Senator who can steer a lot of aid to Ukraine. Does that sound like there is a huge conflict of interest and that the Smith family is being bribed in a pay-to-play scheme? Other than the Biden name what did Burisma receive for the millions it paid Hunter Biden?  What US Government policy was affected?

And keep in mind that the Biden corruption issue was not the first thing that President Trump talked about when he asked for a favor: it was Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election that held Trump's primary interest.  That’s an issue that the Left wants no one to investigate.

I prefaced my remarks by referring to the Rick Moran problem. The problem is the fence-sitters. The problem is those who want to cut the baby in half. The problem is that there are too many people who are comfortable enough with the Deep State that they will echo their talking points. In every period in history the majority will always try their best to get on with their lives. They want no trouble.  These are often referred to as the "good Germans." It’s almost always safer to stay out of the line of fire, especially if you don’t know who’s going to win. And keep in mind the forces arrayed against Trump have a long, long record of winning.

It’s also the reason that there are so many Rick Morans.

Self Censorhsip: When your enemy determies what you are allowed to think or say, he's won.

Ace of Spades:

Keep this in mind when the Democrats in the House are issuing subpoenas by the truckload.

Why are the Senate Republicans not calling Hillary Clinton to testify, under oath, about her knowledge regarding the payments she was making through cut-outs to Russian intelligence operatives for political dirt?

And more importantly: Why are we not asking that? Why has no one proposed that?

Here's my answer. And I think this is true -- and chilling.

Because we're conditioned to understand, in our very bones, that we're not allowed to ask that.

That we're not permitted to even think that.

Demanding Hillary Clinton testify about her own payments to Russians seems obvious. She paid Russians for dirt, which I'm assured is treason.

Why are we not taking the simple, obvious step of questioning her about her treason?

But no one -- and I do mean no one -- even suggests it because of the terroristic left and the constant barrage of media criticism and attacks has put us into a state of constant self-censorship which has evolved into actual, genuine doublethink.

It's not that we think of this and then dismiss it as impossible.

We don't even allow ourselves to think it in the first place.

That's doublethink -- that's the goal of the Inner Party. To make it impossible to even think a thought that the Inner Party disapproves of.

They're not doing 90% of the censorship. Oh, they're doing 10% of it, and it's a big 10%.

But 90% of it they're making us do ourselves.

They've made us so conscious of their demands, and so fearful of their response for not fulfilling those demands, that it has become an autonomous nervous response for our brains to avoid even thinking things that would displease our masters.

They say that if you leave a leash on a dog for five years, even when you take the leash off, he'll remain in the perimeter the now-missing leash would have permitted him.

That's where we are. Unable to even make ourselves venture outside the small little circle our Masters have permitted us.

Doublethink. We know that Good Conservatives -- Conservatives who do not get attacked and doxxed and harassed by partisan government officials -- simply do not ask things like "Why isn't Hillary Clinton, the ultimate paymaster who paid Russians for dirt to attempt a soft coup, being asked questions under oath?"

Even thinking that immediately causes our superegos to step in and shut that thought down: That's not proper! That's not who we are!

President Trump: Paul Ryan Blocked Subpoenas Of Democrats! — Ryan Was On The Other Side!

Paul Ryan is a loser with the vision of a loser.

Trump told Breitbart News in an exclusive lengthy Oval Office interview that Ryan blocked issuance of subpoenas to people he thinks should have been investigated on the political left, and now that the Republicans no longer have the majority in the House, people Trump says Ryan protected may have gotten away with whatever they did that warranted investigation.

Trump said that House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) and his predecessor and fellow conservative Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) wanted to be tougher with the left, but that Ryan would not let them.

If Paul Ryan had been the British leader at the outbreak of World War 2 he would have surrendered.

Did Ed Gillespie want to lose gracefully? It explains a lot.

Republicans are focused on taking the high road so that when the Democrat wins they can claim to have lost gracefully.

This is the type of campaign Democrats run (Northam vs. Gillespie)

So the question is how did Gillespie’s campaign miss the Ralph Northam either in blackface or a KKK costume, yesterday he couldn’t recall which one he was, which could have gone a long way towards neutralizing Northam’s race-baiting? This was one theory that was floated by the Washington Post’s “fact checker.”

Surely, you think, there is no possible scenario where a campaign could have had this material on its opponent and not used it. Could. Not. Happen. Here is where we go down the rabbit hole.

Having observed a boat-load of GOP campaigns over the years, I find nothing at all implausible about the Gillespie campaign having the material and deciding not to use it. From what I’ve seen of Vichy Republicans in action at fairly close range, I’d actually be more shocked if it was used than finding it wasn’t. In fact, one of the reasons Kessler gives as to why the story might be false is actually one of the reasons why Gillespie might have decided not to use it.

In a racially charged campaign, would Gillespie want to be accused of trying to depress black turnout? Could he even be sure the press wouldn’t ignore the images and savage him (more than they were) for employing a “dirty trick” to distract voters from the lofty issues at stake…like would Gillespie supporters actually chase black and Hispanic kids with their pickups?

During the 1992 campaign, I was a military aide to an assistant secretary in one of the cabinet departments and all of my counterparts were Bush Schedule C appointees. Through them, I became acquainted with some senior people on the Bush campaign team. There was tons of oppo on Bill Clinton and his horndogging and the fights between Bill and Hillary on the campaign trail and some really salacious stuff on Hillary’s extra-curricular activities but the Bush campaign elected not to use it in large part because Bush was still stinging from the Willie Horton ad. So finding a GOP campaign acting against its own interests for the sake of being a noble loser isn’t new. I would submit the 2008 McCain campaign had as its objective to be a gracious loser to the first viable black presidential candidate. I’ve never really been convinced Mitt Romney wanted anything more than to lose cleanly in 2012.

As to the denials, if you’d had the images and chosen not to use them because you wanted to take the high road and protect “muh principles,” knowing what you know today, would you admit to not using them? My guess is that you would deny knowing anything about them and take the hit for being merely incompetent.

On the other hand, the Gillespie campaign may have never discovered the images. GOP campaigns hiring incompetents, grifters, and rent-seekers foisted upon them by outsiders is nearly the hallmark of any GOP campaign.

We’ll probably never know if the Gillespie campaign knew about the images or how they managed to miss them and that is mostly because there are no possible answers that make the Gillespie campaign or the Virginia GOP look particularly good.

That's why we now have President Donald J. Trump