The 2024 Election, Part XVII. Standing on their feet or crawling on their knees.

April 24, 2024

And, yes, we already have yet another edition.

First, this:

Russo Ukrainian War

The aid bill passed the Senate 79 to 18.  Wyoming's two Senators, who normally would have voted yes, voted no, so they can bow down to the Populist Party.

Mike Johnson, after receiving intelligence briefings on the Russia war in Ukraine and praying about it, reversed his prior position heroically.  Wyoming's two Senators, who undoubtedly are not in favor of Russian winning the war in Ukraine, and who must at least suspect that voting against aid to Ukraine might mean the butchered bodies of American soldiers in Europe next year or the year thereafter, voted against it anyway.

Politicians are rarely held responsible for willfully wrong votes. Cheney was penalized by the voters for doing the right thing, but had the courage to do it anyhow.  Lummis and Barrasso are doing the wrong thing so as to avoid suffering her fate.  When the day comes, and if Russia prevails there's a good chance of it happening, and Russia crosses the Curzon Line, or the Balkan frontier, and the US finds itself obligated by its NATO treaty to defend Europe, assuming that Donald Trump, who hasn't upheld his oath to the Constitution, or his marital vow(s) would honor our treaty obligations, will those Wyoming politicians, who are too old to serve themselves, at least recognize that they have blood on their hands?

Probably not.

Let's look just a little bit on some of the current local races.

Senate

Lummis isn't running for reelection, but Barrasso is.

Barrasso is in political trouble as his opponent, Reid Rasner, who is from the Populist Party, is giving him a real run for the money, or so it seems.  Barrasso, therefore, is running to the right of himself.

No Democrat has announced as of yet.

Wyoming House District 35

NCSD employee Christopher Dresang is running against Rep. Tony Locke, R-Casper, a Freedom Caucus member.  Dresang is a Casper native who is a graduate of the Catholic school system's St. Anthony’s, and then Natrona County High School, Casper College, the University of Wyoming, and Montana State University-Bozeman.  Locke, unlike many Freedom Caucus members, is actually from Wyoming and has a MS in engineering, making him all the more unusual as he's highly educated and yet apparently a populist.

Wyoming House District 56

Jerry Obermeuller, who was a really good legislator, announced last weekend he was not running for reelection and expressed the hope that a Republican (non Populist) did.  

Elissa Campbell announced her run for that seat yesterday.  She's a Wyoming native, unlike the numerous imports that make up the Invader wing of the Freedom Caucus, and she owns a consulting agency in Casper.  She has two BA's, one in Philosophy one in Environmental Ethics from the University of Wyoming.   The press interview lacked very much useful content and all we really know is that she's a mammal.  Those who know her, however, feel that she'll be much like Obermeuller in outlook.

Wyoming House District 57

Another Wyoming native, and a former teacher, Julie Jarvis, is running against Jeanette Ward, an Illinois Populist who the Wyoming Education Association has been taking on, and a prominent member of the Invader wing.  Ward is amongst the most extreme in every fashion of the Populist, and was an extreme school board member in her native state of Illinois.  Ward has managed to keep her patrim fairly quiet, so nobody has every really looked at it much, even though her presentation alone has a fish out of war element to it.  Jarvis is Wyoming Basque from Buffalo, and came out swinging against her.

This promises to be an interesting race as every Basque I've ever known was really smart and extremely feisty.  Jarvis grew up, it might be noted, in a farming family. What kind of family Ward grew up in is a mystery.

Last prior edition:

The 2024 Election, Part XVI. The Compromised Morals Edition

The 2024 Election in Wyoming. Will anyone rise to the challenge, and is there even a point?

Lex Anteinternet: The 2024 Election, Part XI. The Winter of Disconte...: January 4, 2023

Harriet Hageman announced her bid to be reelected with the release of a video:

Harriet Hageman is running for reelection.  This is not a surprise.

John Barrasso is as well. This is also not a surprise.

The difference between the two races, so far, is that Barrasso has drawn a challenger. . . from his own party, in the primary.

Hageman is unlikely to.

Neither candidate, so far, faces a Democrat.

Just the other day, December 28, I had an entry that mentioned Wyoming's Congressman, Teno Roncalio.  On that day, he was one of the overwhelming majority of House of Representatives members who voted for the Endangered Species Act, one of the greatest pieces of legislation in recent history and one of the real achievements of the forever tainted Nixon Administration.

Roncalio, a lawyer from Rock Springs, and a veteran of D-Day, was a Democrat.  

Nearly everyone in Rock Springs was.

At that time, one of our two Senators, Gale McGee, a former University of Wyoming professor, was also a Democrat.

Now, to use the term "Democrat", even in street speech, is slanderous in the state.  It's like calling somebody a wife beater or something.  Republicans vying to be as extreme as possible accuse their fellow Republicans of being Democrats (even though many of those who do that routinely are imports from the South or elsewhere and are really, even if they don't know it, Dixiecrats or Rust Belt Democrats).

Gale McGee was our Senator until 1977, when he was replaced by Malcolm Wallop, a very conservative Wyomingite of English peerage, in a race in which it appeared that McGee didn't really have any interest in running.  McGee was our last Democratic Senator, and he simply gave the race to Wallop.  

Roncalio served in the House in 1978.  He didn't run for reelection.  He was replaced by Dick Cheney in a race that pitted Cheney, fresh out of the Ford Administration, against Cheyenne attorney Bill Bagley.  Cheney won with about 60% of the vote against a lawyer who is now forgotten, but who held on in practice too long.  Interestingly, showing part of how we got to where we are now, one of his county chairs was a then Democrat who would later be in the legislature as a very conservative Republican.  

That's telling, as a whole herd of Democrats who were later conservative Republicans share that history in the state.

No Democrat has gone to Washington from Wyoming since 1978, but the party remained significant and a power well after that.  It twice took the Governor's office and twice reelected Democratic Governors, with the last Democrat leaving Cheyenne in that role as recently as 2011. Either one of the Democratic Governor's could have had a House, and maybe a Senate, seat if they had wanted one.  The Democrats routinely took the Secretary of State's office for much of the 20th Century, with the last Democratic Secretary of State, Kathy Karpan, leaving office in 1995.  Karpan went on to become the director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement in 1997, being the first woman to hold that position, and being unanimously confirmed back when Congress still did its job.  Like Governors Sullivan and Freudenthal, Karpan could have stepped into the House or perhaps the Senate if she had wanted to.  

Freudenthal remains a significant figure in Wyoming politics.

The last really significant Wyomingite to make a serious run for office with a serious chance of success was Mary Thorne, a lawyer who ran against Governor Gordon in 2018.  There have been other real Democrats who have run for office, with Sergio Maldonado for State Superintendent of Education coming to mind, but since the mid 1990s It's become increasingly difficult and many of the Sullivan/Freudenthal Democrats have dropped out of the party, in part because of the Democratic leftward (and anti-democratic) drift, and in part because at some point being a Democrat was pointless and the Republican primary race became the real election.

2022 really demonstrated the direction that the cancer of Donald Trump had brought about.  

In 2022 the Republican Primary became a referendum on Donald Trump, with the Wyoming electorate, influenced by the import of Rust Belt and Dixie immigrants into the state, basically giving the insurrectionist a big wet kiss on the mouth by tossing out Liz Cheney.  The whole thing was more than a little ironic, as Cheney, who had risen to her office late in her occupation of it, really was never a Wyomingite in the first place, but the party dearly loved her, in no small part because it had embraced Dick Cheney, after having elected him cynically originally.  The Cheney's aren't Wyomingites and Dick Cheney had only won as the voters in 1978 were given a choice between somebody who seemed to have influence in Washington, Cheney had been Ford's Chief of Staff, and a Cheyenne lawyer who had, if I recall correctly, held off a challenge from a younger Casper lawyer who later became a Federal judge.  Wyomingites of that era were pretty practical and cynical, and they never developed a love for their politicians like occured later. Cheney seemed to do a good job, so he held office.  Liz Cheney won as the primary split the vote three ways.  Chance are high had that not occured, Tim Stubson would have been our Congressman, and have gone on to suffer the same fate as Cheney by not searing allegiance to the Dear Leader for life.

Hageman was a Cheney acolyte but was good at reading the wind and beat out her former friend.  Her competition was Lynette Grey Bull, a really interesting Democrat who had run twice and who drew 24.4% of the vote in spite of the times, in spite of being a Democrat, and in spite of being a Native American.

Who will run now.

Since 2020 the State's GOP has gone into a civil war, with the old party at war with the "Freedom Caucus", one of whose (California migrant) members wrote an op ed in the Tribune which clearly indicates their intent to wage a second Stalingrad in the 2022 Legislature.  Two county organizations, Natrona and Laramie Counties, are in revolt against the GOP Central Committee who has fully adopted the Meine Ehre heißt Treue ethos.  Hageman hasn't been as noisy as might be expected, in part because she probably correctly read the tea leaves over the trouble that Trump ass-kisser Kevin McCarthy was in for not kissing even more private parts before he fell to a quiet and scary Johnson.  The House of Representatives had done nothing this term, and is on the edge of losing power due to attrition.  Pundits claim that the GOP will gain House seats in 2022, but they claimed that about 2020 as well.  The stench of Trump kept that from happening.

And so we have a non-functioning democracy, locally.

No Democrat can win any office in 2022.  The House and one Senate seat will be up, and both of the Republicans contending for those positions will pledge their true honor to the Leader without question.  Some in the race to come this year will go further with a full-blown Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer appeal.  The Senate primary will see a GOP opportunistic upstart attempting to claim that John Barrasso is a "RINO", which really means that he's not a Dixiecrat or Rust Belt Democrat.  While I've discounted that campaign, I don't really put it past it that it has a chance of success.

Will any Democrats run?

I sure hope so.  And I mean a real Democrat, not the Left Wing Flavor Of  The Month Democrats that the party has been fielding in some races locally.  Putting up somebody who self declares to be a homosexual polyamorus trangendered drag queen Pacific Islander is not going to win any hearts at all, and really isn't believeable (the same people would decarel themselves to be cocker spaniels if that was edgy, or Orthodox starets if that was edgy).  Soembody like Sullivan, Fruendenthal, Karpen, Thorne, or, once again, Grey Bull.

But who can be asked to be a sacrificial lamb.

Well, somebody had to be. 

The state's honor, and the preservation of democracy, require it.  With no choices now, we get further down the road to there being no choices, ever.  

The Democrats are faced with that burden.  What little there is the way of third parties here do as well.  

The 2024 Election, Part X. Your money where your mouth is edition, sort of?

The last edition started wiping out everything on the front page for some glitchy computer reason, and was hard to post in. So, already on to a new one, with which we start with this interesting item:

November 21, 2023 

But there happen to be better numbers than the ones Cohn and his prophesizing colleagues are citing. And they show Biden well ahead. The prediction markets for elections — essentially investors putting money on candidates — has a Biden win trading at 43 cents, which implies a 43% chance of victory, according to the Financial Times. Trump is trailing at 37 cents, while the other candidates are long shots.

What might make these markets a better indication of the candidates’ prospects than those political polls? For one thing, they have a better record of accurately predicting the winner.PredictIt is currently the biggest legal site for political-prediction trading in this country. 

A smaller political predictions market is Iowa Electronic Markets, at the University of Iowa. Like PredictIt, the Iowa market operates under the academic exception made by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). PredictIt works in a nonprofit arrangement with Victoria University in New Zealand.

The Financial Times sets forth the argument made by PredictIt founder John Aristotle Phillips that “prediction markets are a truth generator, powered by the invisible hand. ... If you trade based on fake news or half-baked punditry, you’re going to lose your money.”

From Harrop:  Actually, Biden is ‘polling’ really well in the markets.

Whose running, check the last edition, it hasn't changed.

Breaking tradition and protocol, Speaker of the House Johnson has endorsed Trump.

November 23, 2023

November 23, 2023

The Colorado Supreme Court is taking up the issue of the 14th Amendment in an appeal from the district court.

My prediction here is that it will adopt the district court's finding that Trump is an insurrectionist, but remand for an order depriving him of a position on Colorado's ballot.

This holding, should it come first, will then be used as a persuasive argument, or even on a full faith and credit basis, in other states.

November 28, 2023

Koch-backed super PAC Americans for Prosperity Action endorsed Nikki Haley.

December 4, 2023

Mysterious mailers attack Wyoming lawmakers, prompt investigation

On a different note, one of the panel members on This Week came absolutely unglued at the argument that Trump is a threat to democracy.

Now, frankly, I think Trump is a threat to democracy.

However, the commentator's point was a good one, which was that the Democrats don't believe that.  His argument was that if they did, they wouldn't be fielding Biden.

Now, I think many Democrats are correct that Trump is very much a threat to democracy, but it is hard to ignore the fact that it's hard to believe their sincerity in the argument when they only think they're will got five voters is a warmed over Cup of Joe.  People keep asking to see the menu, but the waitress just asks, "can I reheat that cup for you?"

Not only that, I'd note, but at the same time that Democrats are arguing that Trump is a threat to democracy, they're also arguing that all third party choices must not be considered.

Eh?

Um, in a functioning democracy they would be considered.

Of course, the reason for that is, to extend the analogy above, you might walk across the street and look at somebody else's menu.  "Hmmm. . . I think I've had enough of this coffeee, do you want to walk across the street and get some ice cream?"  What?  What, are you crazy? Ice Cream will make you fat!  Let me reheat that for you.

December 5, 2023

Doug Burgum has dropped out of the Republican contest.

While other candidates do remain, basically this race is down this Haley, DeSantis, Trump and Christie, with it appearing increasingly unlikely that Christie has a chance.

December 6, 2023

Criminal Defendant Donald Trump, in an interview with Sean Hannity, stated:

I love this guy.  He says, 'You’You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?' I said, 'No, no, no. Other than Day One.' We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.

So, contrary to the headlines, Trump in fact confirmed that he'd act like a dictator, but confined it to a single day, which gets back to his delusional comments that anything can be done in a day.

President Biden indicated he likely wouldn't be running again, but for Trump, in which case he should not be running, as most Democrats don't want him to be and it looks like he'll lose to Trump.

Liz Cheney is hinting that she may run for the Presidency as a third party candidate.

December 17, 2023

Jefferson Davis, a man whose times have seemed to return.

Drawing his lines clearer than ever, Donald Trump unleashed a series of far right dog whistles this past week, including those that recall strongly racist and fascists elements.  To start with, regarding immigration:

TRUMP: No, nobody has ever seen anything like this. And I think we could say worldwide. I think you could go to the... you could go to a banana republic and pick the worst one, and you're not going to see what we're witnessing now. No control whatsoever. Nobody has any idea where these people are coming from, and we know they come from prisons. We know they come from mental institutions. . .  insane asylums. We know they're terrorists. Nobody has ever seen anything like we're witnessing right now. It is a very sad thing for our country. It's poisoning the blood of our country. It's so bad, and people are coming in with disease. People are coming in with every possible thing that you could have. And I got to know a lot of the heads of these countries. They're very cunning people. Very street-smart people. If they're not street-smart, they're not going to be there very long. And when they send up those caravans, and I had it ended, we had the safest border in the history of our country, meaning the history, over the last 80 years. Before that, I assume it was probably not so bad. There was nobody around. But, we had the safest in recorded history by far. The least amount of drugs in many, many decades. The least amount of human trafficking, which is a tremendous problem. But, when you look at what's taking place now, nobody's... first of all, it's not sustainable by any country, including ours, even from a (inaudible) standpoint. And, you know, we built over 500 miles of wall. We were going to put up another 200 miles. And, we had it bought. Everything was bought. Everything was purchased. They were going to ready. It could have been done within three weeks. Another 200 miles, all done. And they didn't want to do it. When you look at the numbers of people coming in, and the numbers, Raheem, are much bigger than anyone understands. I really believe it's going to be 15 million people by the end of this year during this administration. That's larger than New York state. Ok, this is what we have.^1 2

Trump also stated that immigrants would be subjected to stout entry testing, including determining if they agree with "our religion".  

And now Donald Trump has stated this at a campaign rally:

I’ll implement strong ideological screening of all immigrants…If you don’t like our religion…then we don’t want you in our country.

One Twitter commentator that I follow stated that this was the most anti-American statement he could imagine, but it really isn't.  It's a very Southern populist viewpoint, of the type that we haven't seen openly from the 1960s and which most people believed was behind us.

This is ample evidence of how a genuine problem, the absurdly high level of immigration, legal and illegal, that has existed in the country for decades now, but which has been consistently ignored, has festered in the rust belt and populist populations.  It could have been addressed in an equitable fashion before, but now it's threatening to breakout in a really malevolent fashion.  This issue alone may end up defeating Biden, and we should take Trump fully at his word in what he intends to do.

The citation to religion, we'd note, is ironic, as Trump is not a religious man in any fashion, which again demonstrates the extent to which Southern Cultural Christianity has crept into the GOP, and particularly the New Apostolic Reformation movement.  Apostolic Christianity and Judaism are full of Biblical injunctions that immigrants are to be welcomed, something that has long made conservative American Catholics uncomfortable.  But this approach that Trump has now adopted is radical in pledging a religious test for entry, something that has never existed in the country's history.  This too has been a smoldering cultural problem, although it's camouflaged here.  Prior to Ted Kennedy's redrafting of American immigration, US immigration policy strongly favored immigrant pools that reflected existing American demographics.  His reforms, adopted by Congress, changed that, and many have been uncomfortable with those changes, and this is again erupting in a malevolent fashion.

Trump also quoted Vladimir Putin about Joe Biden being a threat to democracy, which is absurd, but which again demonstrates the very weird Putin/Trump connection which has never been fully explored.

The truly scary thing here is that we seem to have gone over a tipping point where these views aren't shied away from, they're being endorsed by large segments of American society.

Footnotes:

1.  Once again, I'm left amazed by some of the ignorance and weirdness in  Trump's speech. The repetitious childishness of his speech patterns, and in this case prior to "80 years ago" "there was nobody around".

Trump just isn't right.  Why is this being ignored?

2.  Some have noted that the "poisoning the blood" language recalls Mein Kampf.  In fact, it does.  Hitler uses that line repeatedly, for example:

Unfortunately the German national being is not based on a uniform racial type. The process of welding the original elements together has not gone so far as to warrant us in saying that a new race has emerged. On the contrary, the poison which has invaded the national body, especially since the Thirty Years' War, has destroyed the uniform constitution not only of our blood but also of our national soul. The open frontiers of our native country, the association with non-German foreign elements in the territories that lie all along those frontiers, and especially the strong influx of foreign blood into the interior of the Reich itself, has prevented any complete assimilation of those various elements, because the influx has continued steadily.

The religious test quote Trump made, makes a person wonder if he's genuinely holding views of this type, although his language recalls anti desegregation Southern whites more strongly in my view.

December 20, 2023

The Supreme Court of Colorado, just as we predicted, has disqualified Donald J. Trump from appearing on the Colorado ballot.

Under the doctrine of full faith and credit, every state is now legally obligated to do the same, or at least give serious weight to Colorado’s decision.  At least some other states will follow this route and as some, like Wyoming, will decry it, it will head to the United States Supreme Court.  I’ll predict right now that the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold the Colorado decision, putting an end, although a precariously late one, to Trump as a candidate.

December 28, 2023

The case noted above has been appealed by the Colorado GOP to the United States Supreme Court, while at the same time, a similar effort in Michigan has failed to take Trump off of that state's ballot.

Should the U.S. Supreme Court take this matter up, which the Trump lawyers also say they will seek, it will prove to be an error and likely end up removing Trump from the race entirely.

Regarding Colorado, a surprise move by Lauren Boebert:

In a true Colorado political surprise, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert announced Wednesday night that she will abandon the congressional district she has represented for nearly three years — and seek her party’s nomination in 2024 on the other end of the state.

Boebert said she will run to represent Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, vying to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, a fellow Republican.

“Personally, this announcement is a fresh start following a difficult year for me and my family,” Boebert said in a video announcement on Facebook. “I will not allow dark money that is directed at destroying me to steal this seat. It’s not fair to the 3rd District and the conservatives there who have fought so hard for our victories, of which I’m incredibly grateful.”

Boebert must be in real political trouble in her district to attempt this move, which very well may fail.  She's going to have to relocate to get on the ballot, and presumably she'll have to resign her current seat when she does. 

cont:

Colorado Supreme Court Ruling in Anderson v. Griswold Appealed to U.S. Supreme Court

Denver, December 28, 2023 - The Colorado Republican Party has appealed the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision in Anderson v. Griswold to the U.S. Supreme Court. With the appeal filed, Donald Trump will be included as a candidate on Colorado’s 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot when certification occurs on January 5, 2024, unless the U.S. Supreme Court declines to take the case or otherwise affirms the Colorado Supreme Court ruling.

Secretary of State Griswold has commented: “Donald Trump engaged in insurrection and was disqualified under the Constitution from the Colorado Ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court got it right. This decision is now being appealed. I urge the U.S. Supreme Court to act quickly given the upcoming presidential primary election.”

On December 19, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the Colorado 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot due to the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Colorado Supreme Court simultaneously stayed that ruling until January 4, with that stay remaining in place in the event of an appeal.

Key Upcoming Dates:

• January 5: Deadline for Secretary of State Griswold to certify the names and party affiliations of candidates on the 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot.
• January 5: U.S. Supreme Court conference day
• January 20: Deadline for 2024 Presidential Primary Ballots to be sent to military and overseas voters.
• February 12: First day 2024 Presidential Primary Ballots can be mailed to active registered voters.
• February 26: First day of in-person voting for the 2024 President Primary.
• March 5: Colorado 2024 Presidential Primary Day, polls close at 7:00 PM Mountain Time.

cont:

Frankly, the decision above by the Colorado Secretary of State, unless there's more to it that I don't know, is flat out wrong.  Her court has decided that Trump is unqualified. An appeal doesn't matter without an order from the appellate court staying the decision.

She's wrong.

Anyhow, now the Secretary of State for the State of Maine has determined that Trump may not appear on Maine's ballot.

Maine won't be the last state to decide in this fashion, and now there's a split set of decisions. The Supreme Court will have to intervene.

January 3, 2024.

Donald Trump's is appealing the ruling of the Secretary of State that Trump cannot stand for election under the 14th Amendment.

Last Edition:

The 2024 Election, Part IX. The Biggest Danger To The World Edition.

Related Threads:

The Post Insurrection. Part VII. The Insurrectionist.