From two sneezes to one

The New Neo Posted on by

For as long as I can remember, when I’ve sneezed it’s always been at least twice. I’m not alone in that, not by a longshot:

Sneezes never seem to be lonely. As soon as you expel your first mighty “achoo,” there’s usually another sneeze lurking right behind to follow it up. For some people, there may be two, three, or even 10 that come after that original sneeze, making for an awful lot of “bless yous” from well-wishers nearby. So why is it that our sneezes seem to adhere to the buddy system?

It all has to do with the power behind your nose’s blows. Usually, sneezes are initiated when a foreign particle or external stimulant enters your snout, reaching the nasal mucosa. “This triggers a release of histamines, which irritate nerve cells in the nose,” Dawn Zacharias, an allergist at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, tells Popular Science. “This activates and results in the sneeze. It’s a powerful release of air, expelling what’s in the nose that’s causing the irritation.”

However, if the irritant is still lingering in your nostrils after a sneeze, your nose is going to give it another go. So typically, a second sneeze means that your first sneeze didn’t really do its job. It explains why people with allergies seem to constantly be reaching for a handkerchief.

I’ve always been a two-sneeze kind of gal, and I also have allergies.

But a couple of days ago I sneezed once, waited for the followup, and it didn’t come. This was so extraordinary that I remarked on it to my companion and said it was the first time in my life that I could ever recall it happening.

But the next time I sneezed, a few hours or maybe a day later, it happened again.

And it just happened again. One lone lorn sneeze. Is my nose suddenly becoming more efficient? Might this be one of the few benefits of growing older?

How Ted Cruz might get elected despite his personality

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s one plausible scenario. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but here’s an excerpt:

…[T]he assumption is that Cruz cannot improve his image among the broader electorate, but that’s hard to know for sure, because he’s never had to do it. While opinions on Clinton are deeply entrenched after her decades in the public spotlight, Cruz isn’t as universally known and has more of an opening to get a second look.

Cruz would enter the general election campaign with a reputation as an extremist, which the Clinton campaign would do everything to play up. But the risk of such a strategy comes if Cruz is able to defy such a caricature during the election among voters getting to know him for the first time.

To quote Shakespeare’s Prince Hal: “By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes/And like bright metal on a sullen ground/My reformation, glittering o’er my fault/Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes/Than that which hath no foil to set it off.”

In other words, Cruz is less of a known commodity to most voters, and he is therefore more likely to be able to improve his image if he can just soften up just a bit.

First, of course, the nomination would have to happen.

Here’s a sample from Salon of the sort of thing you’ll see from the left if Cruz is the nominee. The left will attack any GOP nominee, of course, but there are different approaches for different people. One of the main approaches his opponents will take against Cruz will be that he’s hated by all as well as being way to the right of practically everyone on earth. But the author of that Salon article also seems worried that Cruz will somehow manage to sustain the pretense of being a normal human being, or some approximation of one, long enough to fool the public into voting for him. That fits in more or less with the quote I gave from the first (pro-Cruz) article, as well—the idea that all Cruz needs to do is to prove he’s more or less human and some of the attacks could be blunted.

I also noticed today that in this Powerline post by Paul Mirengoff a quote from a NY Times article on Cruz:

The Times says that some big donors are put off by Cruz’s personality. They complain that even in private, he comes of as sanctimonious and unable to present a persona that’s appreciably warmer than what one sees on television.

I’ve heard the latter point raised by in Washington who are no less conservative than Cruz. It may be a valid insight. But at this juncture, it’s not a good reason to withhold support from the man who stands between the abominable Donald Trump and the Republican nomination.

As Mica Mosbacher, a Cruz fund-raiser and wife of the late Robert Mosbacher, Secretary of Commerce under George H.W. Bush, puts it, “[Cruz] might not be the most fun to have a drink at the bar with, but America needs a designated driver.”

Putting aside the fact that it’s Trump who actually doesn’t drink, and that Cruz does, the metaphor is so apt that Cruz himself made it at a debate last October:

“If you want someone to grab a beer with, I may not be that guy,” he said, when asked to name a weakness. “But if you want someone to drive you home, I will get the job done and I will get you home.”

So, what does America need—a fun beer companion, or a designated driver? I’ve always been immune to this idea of electing someone based on “likeability,” but I concede that all else being equal it’s a wonderful and very appealing trait for a candidate to have, and it can make up for a multitude of sins. Personally, however, I find Cruz not only more likeable than Donald Trump but more likeable than Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and Kasich as well (Rubio was the generally “likeable” one, but he’s gone). So we have a parade of unlikeables this year, which would seem to put whatever it is that people don’t like about Cruz in some perspective.

What is it that they don’t like? I think it’s that he never really seems spontaneous (not to mention the face). He’s always measured and studied and under strict control. I happen to think those are great traits in a president, but I may not be the least bit typical of most voters.

That Times article quoted by Mirengoff also mentions the word “sanctimonious” being applied to Cruz, and that may be a key as well. This is what the word actually means:

1 : hypocritically pious or devout…

2 obsolete : possessing sanctity

So the word “sanctimonious” has, over time, taken on a suggestion of insincerity and even hypocrisy, but originally it merely meant religious or holy. It’s actually not clear whether those being quoted in the Times article as having said it about Cruz meant that found him overly religious–or hypocritical about his religiosity (there’s no indication in the article of the latter; what it seems to be saying is that he won’t compromise his core beliefs, which is the opposite of hypocrisy). For many people, particularly on the left, either one—actual religiousness or religious hypocrisy—would be bad. But my guess is that sincere belief would be worse to them.

It’s of interest to me that criticisms of Cruz and his religiosity often take the form of contradictory pleadings: he’s way way too religions—and besides, he’s a hypocrite and doesn’t really believe all that stuff. Which is it? The attempts to smear Cruz with accusations of sexual affairs with multiple women was and is an effort to prove that he’s a hypocrite. But the charge that he’s not a hypocrite but is in fact sincerely very religious also works well for those predisposed to not like him. For me, the extent of his religiousness would only be an issue if he were not a small government conservative. But since he’s the latter and I don’t see him as trying to impose his religious beliefs on others through government compulsion, I see no problem whatsoever, and whether I share or don’t share his religious beliefs is irrelevant. Hypocrisy is another question; it could matter. But I have seen no evidence that he’s a hypocrite about his religion.

Would Cruz’s personality hold him back from working well with other people in government were he to win an election? I don’t know, but one thing I’ve noticed is that we haven’t heard about a lot of turmoil among those who are working for him in this campaign. That’s not just true lately, now that he’s doing better, but it seems to have been true even earlier in the game, when he was low in the polls. And the Times article says that he’s well-liked by people in Texas who know him:

He is regarded warmly among Republicans in his home state, Texas, where he has deeper personal relations with a wider portion of the donor class…

When Mr. Cruz appeared recently on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” the late-night host took note of his patience in winning new friends.

“What you did is, you kind of held out until they found someone that they liked less than you,” Mr. Kimmel said.

“There you go,” Mr. Cruz replied. “Listen, it is a powerful strategy.”

I wish Cruz were a more instantly affable-seeming fellow. Having observed him in person, though, I will say that he came across as quite likeable (“likeable enough”) in a casual venue. Would he wear well over time in a general election? I don’t know, but he’s improved his standing over the course of the campaign so far.

Maybe it’s time for me to start a “Ted Cruz” category on this blog.

[NOTE: In that Salon piece, I found the following rather amusing:

Throughout the interview, this wily Ivy League educated lawyer presents himself as the champion of the working class, the guy whose only concerns lie with the single mom who works as a waitress and the dad who lost his job down to the plant and can’t get ahead.

With a change of pronouns, would that not be a good description of Hillary Clinton as well?]

Spambot of the day

The New Neo Posted on by

I seldom leave remarks, however i did a few searching and wound up here. And I do have a few questions for you if it’s allright. Could it be simply me or does it look like a few of the remarks appear like written by brain dead individuals? 🙂 And, if you are writing at other sites, I’d lie to follow everything new you have to post.

I think it could be simply you.

And you don’t have to lie to follow me. Just set up a feed or Google alert.

America united

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s not easy to get 70% of Americans to agree on anything, much less across such disparate groups as “men and women; young and old; conservatives, moderates and liberals; and whites, Hispanics and blacks.” But someone has finally done it, and his name is—Donald Trump:

Seven in 10 people, including close to half of Republican voters, have an unfavorable view of Trump, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll…

Even in the South, a region where Trump has won GOP primaries decisively, close to 70 percent view him unfavorably. And among whites without a college education, one of Trump’s most loyal voting blocs, 55 percent have a negative opinion.

More here:

Here is the reality: it will probably be impossible to make the 35% of the Republican party who are behind Donald Trump to ever stop supporting him. That means, he is probably going to go into the convention with the most delegates, even if he does not have 1,237.

Here’s the other reality: We are already at the point where absolutely no one outside of that 35% of the Republican party is an even potentially persuadable voter to Donald Trump. Either within the Republican party or without.

And I promise, no more Trump posts today…I think.

Contested primaries

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a pretty good article about how presidential primaries work, and why it’s that way:

…[I]ncreasingly, any primary process can be effectively overwhelmed by a highly motivated subset of voters who bear little resemblance to the electorate as a whole.

The job of a political party, though, isn’t simply to validate the vote, to lend itself out as a vehicle for whatever uprising has suddenly taken hold in its ranks. Parties exist to advance agendas, to enact policies, to attain and hold power. They exist, in other words, to win.

Trump doesn’t really adhere to any governing agenda, and a mountain of polls suggest that he repulses a strikingly high percentage of voters. If Trump arrives in Cleveland with 1,237 delegates, then he’s earned the nomination, without having resorted to subterfuge or even having tapped his own fortune, and Republicans are stuck with him anyway. But if that number tops out at 1,236, then you can bet the party’s leaders will explore their options.

I would go even further than the author and add that, even if it looks like a candidate (Trump or anyone else) will get enough votes to win on the very first ballot, the party can still change the rules and nominate another person. That would be highly unwise, in my opinion, both in terms of the general and the future of that party, because that really would be ignoring the will of the majority of the people who bothered to vote in the GOP primaries.

I’ll also point out that my notion that parties should have a certain amount of power over their nominee selection process and not merely be the rubber-stamp of primary voters long predates the Trump candidacy. In this 2008 post I wrote the following:

I’ve never been convinced that nominees are best selected by popular vote, anyway. Primaries lock in a nominee too far in advance, and can’t reflect subsequent events closer to election time. They also favor demagogues or the passing candidate de jour, as well as dictating that Presidential office-seekers appeal to the most extreme wing of their Parties in primaries, and then tack back to the middle for the general elections.

“Favor demagogues.” Hmmm.

[NOTE: Also see this comment of mine.]

What happened to Trump in Wisconsin?

The New Neo Posted on by

On the face of it, the question seems like a no-brainer. What happened? As Edward Morrissey writes, he shot himself in the foot—dissing popular governor Scott Walker, and flubbing abortion questions—and ended up losing by 13 points, 35 to Cruz’s 48.

To shore up this argument of a Trump reversal in Wisconsin, Morrissey cites a poll from late January and one from late February in the state, the first of which had Trump leading by 6 and the second by 10. So the narrative seems to make sense—that is, until you actually look a bit deeper, when you find that something else might have been going on.

That “something else” is named Marco Rubio, who dropped out between those two polls and the primary, which meant that the race narrowed down to a 2 and a half person race (Kasich being the half) instead of three-person race (there were other candidates lower down in the Wisconsin polls, too, back in January and February, but I’ll ignore them for the sake of simplicity, and at that point Kasich was almost invisible). In fact, Trump actually received a higher percentage of votes in the primary than in either of those two polls, the first of which had showed him at 24 and the second at 30, with Rubio and then Cruz behind him. In the primary he got 35% of the vote.

That January poll with Trump at 24 also featured a Rubio/Cruz total of 34. The February one had them at a total of 39 to Trump’s 30. The remainder back then was made up of the other candidates (as I said, Kasich was barely a factor). So you see that what occurred was that only a very small portion of the vote of the candidates who dropped out subsequent to the polls went to Trump, and that accounted for his loss and for the magnitude of his loss.

This doesn’t invalidate what Morrissey wrote in terms of the possible reasons Trump failed to pick up the votes of the dropout candidates and close the deal. This is somewhat of a pattern of Trump’s though, not just a recent one in Wisconsin; the difference is that now enough candidates have dropped out to matter more. If you look at this poll from about a week before the primary—when it was just Cruz, Trump, and Kasich—you’ll find that Trump had achieved the 35% that he actually got during the primary, but Cruz was only one point higher, and Kasich at 19% (5 points more than he received). And this poll from about two weeks before the primary shows something very similar: Cruz 36.2, Trump 31.4, and Kasich almost at 20.8. It seems (if the polls were correct) that late-breakers most definitely went to Cruz.

As if this primary season weren’t enough…

The New Neo Posted on by

…the universe is full of black holes.

Probably. Maybe.

Supermassive black holes with masses of more than 10bn suns have previously been found at the heart of large galaxies located in dense clusters in the universe. But this is the first time astronomers have found such an object lurking at the centre of a large galaxy in a relatively empty area of the universe.

“We didn’t expect to see such a huge black hole in a small place,” said Professor Chung-Pei Ma, an author of the study from the University of California, Berkeley.

That, she added, opens up an intriguing possibility. With such galaxies more common than rich clusters, such supermassive black holes could be rife.

“What this is saying is that you don’t need these galaxy clusters to grow very massive black holes,” says Professor Poshak Gandhi of the University of Southampton, who was not involved in the study. “That throws a wrench in the works of our understanding of how these monster black holes form ”“ it throws the field wide open.”

I have to say I’m always assuming that the field is wide open.

Choosing—or rejecting—a candidate by his/her face

The New Neo Posted on by

People on the left and the right keep talking about Cruz’s unpleasant face. I’ve heard such discussions, I’ve read them, and you’ve probably heard and read them too. Perhaps you even agree that Cruz has a remarkably unpleasant face.

Oddly, fewer people are talking about Trump’s unpleasant face, but I think it’s the case that he’s got one.

But I don’t care much about either guy’s face. I have never chosen or rejected candidates on that basis; it seems bizarre to me. I’m not above commenting on looks; for example, I thought Rick Perry looked mighty sharp with his new glasses, but I didn’t support him politically on the basis of that. I don’t even think that most people choose or reject candidates on the basis of looks, but it does get factored in, and perhaps it matters more and more in this age of television, Facebook, and Twitter.

There have been many presidents whose looks I find odd, even off-putting in various ways: Nixon, Truman, LBJ, Carter (whose face seemed almost Alfred E. Neumanish to me). If I look at pictures of all the presidents, I find that the most handsome presidents were Franklin Pierce and Woodrow Wilson, FDR, JFK, and Reagan, and those first two are probably not winning any prizes from most people for anything else but their faces:

pierce

wilson-

On the other hand, you’d have to look long and hard before you’d find someone with a face as unattractive as Lincoln, considered by most people one of our greatest presidents. We’re already familiar with his mien, and register it as “LINCOLN” with all the attendant associations such as “great,” but if that were not true we might indeed find his face repellent.

And John Adams looks unimpressive or worse—rather weak—if you just look at his face without knowing a thing about his actual history and accomplishments:

adams1

Look at a page that has all the presidents’ portraits on it, and you’ll find them a rather odd bunch, actually.

For that matter, think about Churchill. Really think about Churchill. If you didn’t already know who he was, you’d probably think: what a strange, melting sort of face! What an unimpressive, pudgy body!:

churchill1

But as with Lincoln, all is forgiven with Churchill appearance-wise because we know of his eloquence, courage, and achievements. But his face itself when looked at objectively is quite strange, although it has a certain stubborn power.

There was no internet when Churchill or Lincoln were running for office. But there’s plenty of evidence that most people who saw Lincoln in the flesh at the time found him not just ugly, but surpassingly ugly, with some people (under the heading “extreme observations” at that link) making it clear that he was actually the ugliest man they ever saw, which I suppose is a sort of distinction. Lincoln himself often joked about his face, with this being typical:

After being called two-faced in a debate: “I leave it to my audience. If I had another face, do you think I’d wear this one?”

As for Cruz, the internet is rife with people writing about why his face unsettles them. Here’s one such piece:

I have rarely, if ever, seen a conventional smile from Senator Cruz. In a natural smile the corners of the mouth go up; these muscles we can control voluntarily as well. But muscles circling the eyes are strictly under involuntary control: they make the eyes narrow, forming crow’s feet at the outside corners. Even the Mona Lisa’s smile shows this. The eyes give away one’s game and help us tell forged from genuine smiles. Grandma may have told you to put on a happy face, but you can’t if it isn’t heartfelt.

No matter what the emotional coloring of Senator Cruz’s outward rhetoric is, his mouth typically tightens into the same straight line. If it deviates from this, then the corners of his mouth bend down, not upwards. The outside of his eyebrows bend down, too, when he emotes, something so atypical that it disturbs me. Typically a person’s eyebrows arch up…

Actually, I’ve seen plenty of eyebrows that turn down, as well as mouths, and it doesn’t really disturb me although it doesn’t attract me either. The bearers of these turned-down faces aren’t usually people running for office, though; for example, I found an actor named Kyle Chandler (never heard of him before) who definitely has down-sloping eyes and eyebrows:

kylechandler

And I’m not quite sure what to say about this picture of 20s movie star Clara Bow—except that, well, she bears a slight resemblance to Ted Cruz here:
clarabow

Quite a few websites suggest that it’s Ted Cruz’s smile that’s the problem—or rather, his supposed lack of a Duchenne smile. And if you look at a lot of photos of Criuz smiling, his smile does often look rather tight. But it’s not unlike that of his fellow Texan LBJ, and I don’t recall anyone mentioning a problem with LBJ’s smile at the time. There’s also an odd resemblance to the tight little smile of actress Joan Cusack, who is considered rather quirky and charming.

What I really think is the problem is that Cruz’s face looks too much like the classic mask of tragedy, which has the same down-sloping eyes and mouth:

tragedy

As I said, I’m neutral about Cruz’s face. The following is not one of the worst photos I could find of him—I think it’s actually one of the best—but it’s certainly the way he looks quite a bit of the time, and I see nothing wrong there:

cruz

Wisconsin: post-primary thoughts

The New Neo Posted on by

I feel a great sense of relief at the GOP results from Wisconsin, but of course this is just one state. If Trump had won a resounding victory there, though, I would have said that his chances of getting a majority of delegates on the first ballot at the convention were fairly good. Now he still could do it, but his chances are looking considerably worse.

I have also noticed that the Kasich-Trump-Cruz results at the moment look quite a bit like a Fibonacci Sequence, in this case 14/34/48. I haven’t a clue what that might mean, but I like it.

At first when I saw this article about the Trump campaign’s post-primary statement this evening I thought it might be some sort of joke. But it’s on too many websites to be a parody, although it reads like a parody. Sadly, it seems all too real:

Donald J. Trump withstood the onslaught of the establishment yet again. Lyin’ Ted Cruz had the Governor of Wisconsin, many conservative talk radio show hosts, and the entire party apparatus behind him. Not only was he propelled by the anti-Trump Super PAC’s spending countless millions of dollars on false advertising against Mr. Trump, but he was coordinating `with his own Super PAC’s (which is illegal) who totally control him. Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet”” he is a Trojan horse, being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump. We have total confidence that Mr. Trump will go on to win in New York, where he holds a substantial lead in all the polls, and beyond. Mr. Trump is the only candidate who can secure the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination and ultimately defeat Hillary Clinton, or whomever is the Democratic nominee, in order to Make America Great Again.

Trump has become a parody of himself, and that’s saying something.

It’s almost unnecessary to fisk that statement, but I’ll just point out that:

(1) plenty of conservative talk show hosts and media outlets love and support Trump and have given him far more air time than they have given Cruz

(2) neither Trump nor his campaign have offered a single particle of evidence for the very serious charge they have made that Cruz illegally coordinated with his own super PAC

(3) everyone who has followed Cruz’s career for years ought to be aware that he’s been detested by the establishment, and that those from the establishment who are backing him now are only doing so with their backs to the wall and in desperation at the prospect of Trump

(4) there is also no evidence for the claim that Trump is the only candidate who can “secure the delegates” needed to win the nomination, since the rules permit delegates voting as they wish if no one gets the nomination on the first ballot (but perhaps Trump is unaware of the rules?)

(5) there is not even a scintilla of evidence for the idea that Trump can beat Hillary Clinton, much less that he’s the only candidate who could do it

When you read that statement it’s hard not to conclude that Trump is a very small man. And I’m not talking about his height, the size of his hands, or the dimensions of the male member he likes to brag about. I’m talking about his character.

[NOTE: It isn’t relevant, really, but I’ll also point out that “whomever” in that last sentence is incorrect; it should be “whoever.” I’m rather sympathetic on that score, though, because it’s a tough rule and I’ve made errors of that sort myself.]

[ADDENDUM to NOTE: After ruminating on it some more, I have to say I think that “whomever” might be correct. That sort of confusion is why I said I was sympathetic on that score. In fact (and here’s a confession), although I’m generally pretty accurate on grammar, I have come to avoid sentences in which I have to make a tough choice between “whoever” and “whomever,” because I find the rule so difficult to apply correctly, although I’ve read the guidelines many times.]

Wisconsin primary thread

The New Neo Posted on by

As usual with these primaries, I am very anxious. This particular primary has been hyped as Extremely Important, maybe The Most Important One of All. I think that’s hyperbole, but it’s not all that far from the truth.

The polls in Wisconsin close at 8 PM Central Time.

Roger Stone, Trump supporter, issues a threat

The New Neo Posted on by

Roger Stone has a message for voters, and for delegates to the RNC [emphasis mine]:

If Trump does not run the table on the rest of the primaries and the caucuses, we’re looking at a very, very narrow path in which the kingmakers go all out to cheat, to steal, and to snatch this nomination from the candidate who is overwhelmingly selected by the voters, which is why I have urged Trump supporters: come to Cleveland. March on Cleveland. Join us in the Forest City. We’re going to have protests, demonstrations. We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal. If you’re from Pennsylvania, we’ll tell you who the culprits are. We urge you to visit their hotel and find them. You have a right to discuss this if you voted in the Pennsylvania primary, for example, and your votes are being disallowed.

“Find them”—and do what to them? I can think of many possibilities, and no doubt they can, and the Trump voters can, too. But I think Stone’s main idea is to intimidate the delegates into voting Trump’s way.

Roger Stone is no longer Trump’s “top political advisor” (he either resigned or was fired, or both, last August). But he remains one of Trump’s closest personal friends and a firm supporter—in his own words, “the ultimate Trump loyalist”:

It’s hard to overstate just how close Trump and Stone have been over the years. Their professional and personal relationship goes back more than three decades.

They weren’t just “close”; Stone was a lobbyist for Trump’s casino interests for many years. But Stone has a much longer political profile than that; you have to read his entire Wiki entry to get the full flavor of it, but let’s just say he put the dirty in dirty tricks for many candidates (although some of the candidates he has worked for along the way have not been known for dirty tricks, such as Ronald Reagan, and it’s not clear if he did that sort of thing for them). Threatening delegates may be something new, though, even for Stone. Stone also wrote an entire book alleging that LBJ was behind the assassination of JFK, which puts Stone in the sort of conspiracy territory usually reserved for the fringe.

He also has been behind several of Trump’s many presidential runs that never really got off the ground:

In 1988, Stone wanted Trump to run for president and arranged for him to give a speech at the Portsmouth, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, which garnered enormous media coverage. Stone says some of his friends in the state organized a short-lived “Draft Trump” movement, but within a few weeks, Trump had determined he would forgo a run to focus on his business career.

Twelve years later, when Trump launched a presidential exploratory committee, Stone served as its chairman…

“Three years ago, I wanted him to run for president; I thought the timing was right,” Stone says. “He did look at it seriously; he looked at both the Republican nomination and he took a quick look at the possibility of running as a third-party candidate.”

In sum, Stone is not just a passing acquaintance for Trump; he appears to be his oldest and closest political adviser, even if he holds no official political position any more with the Trump campaign. This entire episode is an interesting exercise in what commenter “Eric” on this blog keeps mentioning—that Republicans need to be political activists using leftist methods in order to win. This idea of outing the room numbers of delegates at the GOP convention (plus, of course, the rhetoric Stone and Trump use that such delegates’ exercise of their right to vote freely at the convention if Trump doesn’t win by the rules of the first ballot represents “cheating” and/or “stealing”) is a classic leftist-type ploy. I don’t like it; I think it crosses the line from acceptable activism to dangerous demagoguery, intimidation, and threats.