Competition, Embrace It!
It Makes You Better
I notice that in some parts of the United States, Republican leaders are trying to centralize power. They think they are doing it for the good of their constituency to protect them from the evils that are out there.
Part of the reason is that there are Establishment Republicans that seek to hold control, or there are Trump Republicans that seek to retain or grab control. Neither faction plays it straight and is avoiding competition to the detriment of the party.
Michigan’s GOP voted to oust their leader today. I don’t know much about it but yesterday I did see a story where Michigan’s GOP wanted precinct captains to have control over who ran in the primaries. That’s wrong and that’s basically back room cigar-chomping politics as usual. What’s the difference between that and the Democratic Machine?
Illinois Republicans centralized everything years ago. They wound up selling out to The Combine and now are a marginalized and very minority party in the state. Does anyone care about them in any place that has a meaningful population of people? They aren’t competitive at all.
In my new home state of Nevada, the Republican Chairperson is an Always Trumper. He is trying to rig all the Nevada delegates for Trump. Instead of having a primary, they are having a caucus. Some Republicans are on the ballot for the primary, and NOT in the caucus. Chuck Muth who I recently met at a function has written a lot about it. I am not well versed in Nevada politics, but my guess is through shitty leadership over the last many years they went from a Republican state to a gerrymandered Democratic state.
Most Republicans favor term limits in the Senate and House. We ought to favor them for party leaders as well.
Competition is what makes you great. It sharpens your blade, even when you lose. But, competition is scary. It’s why before a big violin solo you had butterflies in your stomach. It’s why before the curtain was drawn ahead of an artistic performance, you felt a flutter in your stomach. It’s why in athletic competition, you feel butterflies.
You might fail.
Failure is a feature, not a bug. I understand how rabid and tribal people can become about things, especially with the way social media herds us today. Ronald Reagan tried to win in 1976 and didn’t. Gerald Ford was the candidate, and he lost to Jimmy Carter. Guess who won in 1980 in a very competitive primary?
Trump competed and won in 2016. Why shouldn’t he have to compete today? Surely, he would relish it because he is a competitive person. Competing head-to-head will make him better.
I do think there is a competitive debate in the Republican Party. Establishment Republicans do not want to see their grip go away. The Trumpers often are misguided in policies. They are too populist and do not follow capitalistic economic incentives hard-wired into human DNA. But, I think they are persuadable and their hearts are in the right place. I want the Republican Party to start to embrace the things Milei is doing in Argentina. Classical liberalism in the vein of Milton Friedman and Mises will work.
Candidate and President Trump is not a classical liberal. Neither is Nikki Haley or Chris Christie. Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis are the closest, but not all their ideas or actions would fall into that category.
The hard thing for any candidate to do will be to get another candidate’s base to turn out for them if they win. I have seen many Trumpers say if he isn’t the candidate they are staying home. In that case, you hand power to the people that want you destroyed.
I will vote for any Republican over any of the current Democrats. The fight in the Democratic Party is between people who favor government solutions to problems and socialists/communists. Neither works. Centrists in the Democratic Party put in place policies they think will work but once out in the wild exhibit totalitarian tendencies.
I signed up for the caucus in Nevada. First time I have ever done something like this. But, I watched Bret Weinstein on Tucker Carlson’s show and we need to take action. We can’t sit in our chairs and get run over by anyone, even when they are supposedly “on our side”.
There is no “politics doesn’t affect me” anymore. Because they can easily set up what Weinstein calls a “turnkey” system that will affect you.
I just finished watching the Weinstein-Tucker interview as well and it’s pretty clear we are on the precipice of a globalist coup. The Democrats are part of this coup and aren’t even really hiding it anymore. (See illegal immigration). People that say they won’t vote if trump is on the ballot are very short sighted. Trump is just a man. Not a savior. Don’t let the ok be the enemy of perfection. That said, I don’t much care for trump, but I don’t really think any of other candidates are very inspiring nor can get much done to turn back the tide of globalist fascism. The other day I heard DeSantis say something to the effect of the J-6 people in the DC gulag are getting what they deserve. They were misguided and should get tickets for trespassing and go home. They are being put in solitary confinement for weeks and months and some have been in jail without trial for years. J-6 was a deep state setup and they are pawns in a propaganda game. They are truly dissidents of a deep state coup. Why can’t he see that? The people that run the Republican Party are feckless because they are bought. That’s why. Trump and Vivek are the only ones running that aren’t. And just a handful of others in national politics. Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee. Maybe a few congresscritters. It’s gonna be hard to get the country back. But what else have we got to do that’s more important? Be slaves of a globalist, Eugenicist, fascist oligarchy? No thanks.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was slated to run against Jan Schakowsky for Congress. I've an interesting backstory into Illinois combine politics. In 2004, the primary was held on March 16th. Many will remember that on that day, Barack Obama obliterated Dan Hynes in the Democrat primary for U.S. Senate, and Goldman Sachs partner, Jack Ryan, became the GOP nominee. In my neck of the woods, on the far north side of the city, and collar suburbs of Evanston, Skokie, Morton Grove, Park Ridge, Des Plaines and Rosemont, no Republican filed a nominating petition for the chance to get smoked by Schakowsky in the 9th Congressional.
Days before the primary in which she ran unopposed, Schakowsky's husband, political consultant, Robert Creamer was indicted by the U.S. Justice department for kiting checks. He was also charged with tax evasion, and his jointly filed returns were indeed co-signed by the esteemed leftist Congresswoman. With images of Michael Flanigan's 1994 upset of Dan Rostenkowski dancing in my mind, I recognized that running against Schakowsky was a bona-fide lotto ticket risk vs reward proposition. Because no one ran in the primary, by statute, the Republican ward and township Committeeman who composed the 9th District met in early May to select a candidate for the November ballot. I was pleased that I was asked to run by my fellow committeemen without even needing to hint interest.
In late May, the Illinois GOP convened in Collinsville. While there, my State Central Committeeman, who was tasked with filing my paperwork with the Illinois Board of Elections, sought me out at a restaurant. The State committeeman was handpicked by allegedly Outfit connected Rosemont mayor, Donald Stephens. The message was, "we need you to bow out. There's a (RINO) State senator facing a tough campaign, and if we lay down against Schakowsky, they'll take a powder in our race."
I was a bit intimidated. In the 1950's, two GOP ward committeemen were offed by the outfit, one, Clem Graver was "taken for a ride" (literally) and never seen again. What if I was unwittingly standing in the way of a Rosemont casino license? Still, I wanted to run, so that evening, I went to my political mentors, who had their own clout. The next day, Karl Rove approached me and said, "you're the kid running against Schakowsky? You're staying in that race. That's an order from the White House." A few minutes later, I was told that Speaker Dennis Hastert wanted to see me. "We want you on that ballot. We'll fly you to Washington to raise money, I'll start out by contributing $5000 from the Keep Our Majority pac."
To make a long story short. The media never once uttered the name Robert Creamer. I was never invited to D.C. or given that 5k from Hastert, in fact I had to beg for $1k from him, and only got that because Hastert's chief of staff knew me from Edgewater. The RINO GOP chick retained her seat anyways and I lost 75/25. Don Stephens did however send me a couple a hun and every year I received a Christmas card from him.
The only cool thing about it all was an inside mole at the Tribune told one of my mentors that the Editorial Board strongly considered endorsing me, but just didn't see my candidacy as viable. At least my hometown paper didn't burn me: https://www.newspapers.com/article/chicago-tribune-2004-tribune-congressio/134224188/