When Republican candidates go to court, they get celebrities that don’t know the relevant laws, and drunks like Rudy. Meanwhile the Democrats know it inside out. This is how Al Franken beat Norm Coleman in Minnesota. Coleman had a trial lawyer, who put the word out to recounters to be reasonable and not pushy. Democrats were led by Marc Elias, who told Dem recounters to fight every single vote. By the time the Republicans figured out it was a street fight, Franken had switched enough questionable ballots that he led throughout the count.

This is how they got Sarah Palin out of the governor’s office in Alaska. They took advantage of a law that let any citizen make accusations, which the state then had to investigate at no cost to the complainant. But Palin had to defend herself out of her own pocket. After four of these baseless accusations, she saw bankruptcy ahead and quit to protect her family’s home and bank accounts.

Today the Democrat Arizona AG, who won by 7,000 votes, indicted two outstate Republican county commissioners for not voting to certify their county count quickly enough. Naturally the Arizona Republic, once a conservative paper, thinks this is just swell.

“CNBC reported, “JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon urged Democrats to support Nikki Haley in the GOP presidential primary, arguing that she offers a strong alternative to former President Donald Trump.”

Never Trumpers want Democrats and Independents to vote for her in the Republican primaries to kneecap President Trump and MAGA Republicans in the general election.”

https://donsurber.substack.com/p/all-hail-haley?utm_source=substack&publication_id=1115457&post_id=139254674&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=35rfl

Understandably. I am on the hawkish and interventionist side in terms of foreign policy myself, but the betrayal about Jan 6 is all but unforgivable for me. The stupidity about internet anonymity was just more dirt on the grave.

Turtler – The lone wolf thing could be an issue, agreed. The leftist dark money won’t be agitating for it, though, like they were agitating against Kavanaugh and then against the justices after Dobbs.

I see two major issues.

A: That there’s a much shorter gulf between “approved Leftist paramilitary” and “Lone Wolf” than even the terrorist godfathers on the Left care to admit, and as Hodgekinson showed there is the risk of some of them getting supplies and then going off the reservation to act on their own accord.

B: I’m not sure Leftist Dark Money WON’T be agitating for it. The militancy and vitrol of the pro-Hamas propaganda and activists is something to behold even given how godawful it makes them look, and while a lot of that can be explained by Islamist networks that doesn’t ignore the role of the Left in fanning the flames. If you want more of something, subsidize it. The Left’s dark money big wigs have been subsidizing and encouraging bad behavior from everything like the Black Panthers at polling stations with truncheons to AntifA. I briefly considered they might crack down on the paramilitaries after initial smackdowns in Biden’s term, but that’s stopped.

I believe that Democrats would much rather run against Trump than either Haley or DeSantis.

Agreed regarding DeSantis, but Haley I think shot herself in the foot badly with the internet anonymity issue.

It’s pretty hard to argue that “democracy itself will die” if your party loses an election to DeSantis, or especially Haley.

I think you underestimate these people. It might hold less purchase when not against Trump but these people have been delegitimizing every Republican Presidential Candidate since W. Bush in 2000, and demonizing every one of them since Nixon if not Dewey as a Nazi.

Also, Democrats’ reaction to these poll numbers should tell us a lot about how valid they are. Axelrod calling for Joe to drop out suggests that they are real. Other than Axelrod, though, there don’t seem to be a lot of higher up Democrats freaking out about it. I guess we’ll see.

They could be real, or they could be a calculated ploy by those opposed to Biden or otherwise trying to clear the area to force him out and put in Harris or who have you.

I’m reminded of this intentionally politicized exercise exercise the German army conducted on November 1932 in the sort of twilight after the Weimar Republic died but before Hitler took over, which purported to “show” that it could not hope to simultaneously crush simultaneous Communist and Fascist uprisings and guard the Polish frontier. That may have been true, but it was in reality designed by Defense Minister Kurt von Schleicher in order to finish ousting his old ally turned rival von Papen from the Chancellorship so he could replace him. Papen realized this and tried to get Schleicher fired, but couldn’t and Schleicher went on to become the last Chancellor before Hitler.

I think that interests on the left tried to leverage Trump in 2016 and hugely miscalculated.

Largely agreed.

(Its arguable that Trump would have never been the GOP nominee in 2016 absent the extensive early coverage he received on MSNBC and CNN.) Maybe Democrats are miscalculating again, but I suspect that they know what they’re doing this time. 2016 was a fluke.

Possible, but 2020 should be a fluke as well.

She is generally on the hawkish side. Also, her recent comments on internet anonymity. In addition, she turned on Trump and the J6ers. Many Trump supporters turned on her for that. Also, I seem to recall that in one of the early debates, which I happened to watch, she leaned on the idea that she should be voted for because she’s a woman. I can’t find the quote, but it was something like that.

Of course, if she’s the nominee, I’ll vote for her. But I don’t think she will be. I think Trump will be.

She supports Lindsey Graham’s 15-week abortion ban, so she’s not an absolutist on abortion.

She has flipped on gay marriage from 2013, and she did talk against a bill in the SC legislature that would have required use of biological bathrooms, but she also said the Florida bill restricting sex ed at early grades didn’t go far enough. I would say at the least she’s trying to thread the needle there– though she could have principled reasons for her stances.

She’s talked tough about China, Iran and Russia.

I suspect she’s a free trader, though she has talked about bringing jobs back from China.

If she happened to win the nomination, I’m pretty sure everyone here would vote for her, given the alternative. She can’t be any worse than Romney or McCain.