Tag: Primary

Trump Swings For The Fences: The Kemp win in Georgia only means the President can afford to take chances

I always thought that the David Purdue race for governor in Georgia would be an uphill battle. Trump’s endorsement has a lot of power, and his record is outstanding. Still, it would be a stretch in Georgia to beat the incumbent Brian Kemp for many of the same reasons it was going to be hard to beat the establishment RINO Mike DeWine in Ohio. It’s hard to beat an incumbent for one because they have the power of the office to run from. And it takes a real organized effort to knock someone off the top of the mountain, and David Purdue didn’t have that. Trump’s endorsement was a revenge pick, more than a practical one, and down the stretch, the money didn’t line up with the passion. If Trump didn’t have a personal vendetta against Kemp, he likely wouldn’t have put his name behind Purdue. David Purdue never was able to define his campaign as anything other than fighting election fraud, and voters in Georgia were obviously looking for something to vote for, not against. There’s a lot of funny business regarding elections in Georgia. Still, as I said leading up to the primary election, the establishment types were betting everything they had on Georgia, so it would be tough to do anything there. In many ways, I would point to this circumstance and remind everyone not to take anything for granted when it comes to the general elections in the fall. The SWAMP is not going to go quietly in the night. They have everything to lose and will fight to keep it; whether it’s money, cheating, lying, stealing, whatever they have to do, they will do it. And it will take more than what David Purdue put forth in Georgia to beat them. 

https://truthsocial.com/users/realDonaldTrump/statuses/108362568823326243

The media was all too happy to underline the loss of Trump’s endorsement. They ignored all the other wins he has had, which was to be expected. The Never Trumper types are hoping this means that the Trump brand is damaged forever and that they might be able to put up Mike Pence, someone from the Trump administration but isn’t Trump. To me, it’s obviously wishful thinking. David Purdue was never for what Trump is and always acted as a person drug into the race to challenge Kemp rather than someone who was passionate about winning. So the Trump endorsement has its limits. Trump can afford to swing for the fences, and he does. That has given him more home runs than not, so the essence of the Kemp win isn’t so much a strikeout but rather the affordability that Trump has to take risks on candidates that might not otherwise have a chance. Obviously, voters liked Kemp in Georgia and needed more to take a turn from him. They needed more than election fraud to drive their passions.

Yet there is a more sinister tone to the haughty banter after the Kemp win, the hope by the media and Never Trumper types that election fraud was not something that voters cared about. Purdue made it a one-issue race, and after the primary election, it’s clear that voters wanted more than that. Election fraud is hard for people to admit to, like acknowledging that a loved one is an alcoholic or that a spouse is cheating on you. Mainstreamers want to believe that they can vote and that it will be counted honestly so they can return to their lives without worrying about it. So there is a natural reluctance to put the thought out of their heads. While most believe there was election fraud in the 2020 election, they don’t want to live with the knowledge that it will require them to do something more severe, like scrutinizing those who count the votes. They want to believe that Brian Kemp is a good person because to admit otherwise will require work on their part that they aren’t willing to commit to. People are prone to ignore an injustice if it means they can live in peace. And obviously, there are many in the Beltway culture, Mike Pence included, who are counting on that timidity to allow them to stay relevant in the political world. It should be remembered that Trump picked Pence to be his Vice President because he wanted to drive a wedge into the Never Trumpers, to begin with, to put one in his administration. Trump did that with a lot of people because he thought the strength of his personality could convert them over to justice. I would say that, for the most part, Trump significantly improved the conditions around him. Still, he was never going to be able to use his sizeable positive personality to change the behavior of those who insist on keeping their minds below the line. 

The hatred for Trump is to hate the concept of Making America Great Again. Instead, the Never Trumpers, including Mike Pence, believe more in the survival of institutions rather than in reshaping them for positive outcomes. So it wasn’t a loss for Trump that David Purdue never could get that message across. If it had been Trump running, the priorities would have been different during the campaign. Trump would have been “for” things rather than just stating that he would fight election fraud, which few people want to admit is a problem, especially those who have committed it to preserve institutional power. MAGA is powerful as a movement, but you can’t use it as a golf ball driver when you really need a short putt. You might still be able to make the shot, but it’s not the best tool to use. In truth, Georgia, in the decertification process, isn’t needed. There is plenty of criminal conduct already proven in Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, with governors who will get behind the decertification movement. Georgia was the last refuge of the Never Trumpers, and we learned a lot by watching them in this primary race.

In many ways, watching all the anti-Trump forces spike the football over the Kemp win is like a football game where the losing team has been down 60 to 0, and they get a field goal at the end of the game. The crowd cheers because there is something to be happy about, but they will still lose the game. The disappointment for the MAGA voters is that they wanted the shutout. They wanted as much of a perfect record for Trump as possible. But, Trump is willing to take chances. He does not play it safe. And as a result, sometimes there will be misses. Trump has playing golf seven holes in one, and you get that by hitting the ball hard and trying to skip all the little putts that get you to the green by hitting over the obstacles or through them. Sometimes that means that the ball will go into the rough. But if you play it safe, as many people do, you won’t get those holes in one. So by force of personality, Trump has an excellent win ratio. He can afford a David Purdue here and there, and all it means to the political world is that the Trump brand is so strong that he can take risks others can’t afford to. It doesn’t mean that the Never Trumpers will start winning, and MAGA is on the decline. 

Rich Hoffman

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Mike DeWine Ruined Kings Island’s 2020 Season: The danger of an out-of-control government ran by losers like the current Ohio governor

As if anybody needed a reminder about just how terrible Mike DeWine has been as governor. Apparently, there are people out there with the memory of a goldfish, so they need the reminder. Just remember on election day of May 3rd, 2022, that Kings Island, one of the greatest amusement parks in the country, in the world for that matter, is currently under a big lawsuit from season pass holders from the 2020 season who wanted a refund, and are now taking the Cincinnati treasure to court over how the parent company, Cedar Fair Amusements handled the government imposed business shutdowns during the fake Covid pandemic. Now for those who aren’t regular readers, you probably know people who were sick over Covid, who may have died. Remember about Covid, which Governor DeWine was one of the first in the country to be suckered into the Bill Gates power grab for which Covid was created. Covid-19 was made in a lab in Wuhan, China. Dr. Fauci knew about it. He and Bill Gates knew some medicines could have stopped the virus, such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. Still, they deliberately suppressed that information from the public with donations made by Bill Gates to manipulate the media coverage and steer the public toward government-mandated vaccines, a multi-decade project that Bill Gates personally has funded so to usher the world toward a one-world government run by the United Nations steered by the Desecrators of Davos party. The same minds have now brought us the crises in Ukraine. And regarding Covid, the government reaction to the virus caused trillions of dollars of damage, ruined many lives, destroyed jobs, and broke the laws of our constitutions in gross ways that many thought was impossible before 2020. Kings Island in northern Cincinnati is an example of how government can ruin lives when it is unchecked and has too much power, for which Governor DeWine is guilty. 

I was on several conference calls with Ceder Fair Amusements and Governor DeWine during the spring of 2020 when the entertainment giant was making its plea to get some visibility to schedule when they could reopen operations. At that time, it was May. Being a seasonal company operating two very large amusement parks in Ohio, which Mike DeWine had prevented from opening by abusing his emergency powers as governor, Cedar Fair Amusements needed answers from the government-created travesty. They had no idea when they could open Kings Island or Cedar Point, and being a seasonal company, they were already hurt in acquiring employees for the season. On that conference call, Mike DeWine was strutting his authority under emergency powers, and it was apparent that he never planned to give up those powers. Now two years later, we still have the pandemic going. The Democrats want desperately to use Covid emergencies to shield them from election results they don’t like. That was certainly the case in 2020 when they wanted Donald Trump out of office. And it’s the case now in 2022, with midterms shaping up to be really devastating for Democrats and the terrible job they have done at the national level possessing all three houses of government, Blue state governors are still looking for Covid to shield them from poor performances. And out of all the governors in the country, Mike DeWine has governed as a blue state governor, certainly not a Republican. And on that phone call, he could not tell Cedar Fair Amusements when they could open or the plan for them ever to do so. DeWine was utterly unsympathetic to the business community’s needs and showed everyone just how dangerous government could be when it was out of control. 

That year Kings Island finally was able to open with horrendous restrictions to the public by July, after half the season was over. That year also, Kings Island had to shut down their Halloween Haunt weekend schedule and their Winterfest activities. So Kings Island was open from July 4th essentially to Labor Day. And before DeWine would let them do that, they had to agree to all kinds of unscientific social distancing rules and mask mandates after having to scramble to find enough employees even to open the park, let alone to give the customers the amusement park experience that they were craving. Kings Island was trying to open one of their big multi-million dollar Giga coasters, and the steam of the whole event was completely destroyed by what DeWine himself had done. Under emergency powers, he cut out the legislature. He took complete command of Ohio’s economy, which he didn’t have the right to do. He took hundreds of millions of dollars from Kings Island in opportunity cost. For Cedar Fair Amusements, it was a devastating summer, just as it was for many hundreds of thousands of other companies, large and small, who struggled to survive the ominous behavior of government exerting powers it didn’t have for the destruction of the people they were supposed to serve. If Covid was a virus that was built by our own Defense Department, funded by Dr. Fauci, and released by China as a bioweapon, and it robbed us of our taste buds, our health, and happiness, the government reaction to it with all the rules and regulations was far more dangerous. People might say that Cedar Fair Amusements is a wealthy company with all the money to absorb the costs. Those would be people who have no idea how much money it takes to run an amusement park. 

I thought what Kings Island did that year was good; they essentially gave all season pass holders for the 2020 season a free renewal of the 2021 pass. Even that following year, Covid was still a problem, and DeWine had just reopened the state against his will. The Senate passed a bill to take those emergency powers away from DeWine, and it finally went into effect in June of 2021, and then and only then did DeWine step away from the lockdowns. The government had spent over a year terrifying people over Covid, which certainly hurt Kings Island’s business model. It will likely take them a decade to recover what was lost in just that one year. The current lawsuit is over how Cedar Fair Amusements managed Covid, which was entirely out of their control. Some people wanted a refund of their 2020 passes because they couldn’t use them. My wife and I went one time to ride the new Orian ride but didn’t go the rest of the year because the mask mandate was impossible to deal with in the hot summer sun, and it wasn’t worth it to us. We thought it was nice that Kings Island honored our passes for the following year. In 2021 we went often but noticed that many of the normal crowd had not returned. Some people were still worried about Covid, and they might never feel comfortable going out in public again. Those are the people suing Kings Island because they wanted a complete refund of their passes for 2020. The government had so terrified those people that they were permanently damaged. So now, with the summer of 2022 coming, Mike DeWine is running for a second term. And Kings Island is in court trying to defend itself from actions that Governor DeWine caused by his horrible mismanagement of Covid in the summer of 2020. Anybody who votes for him after that terrible performance is an idiot and an enabler of abuse.   

Rich Hoffman

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Butler Country Republican Party Endorses Jim Renacci for Governor: President Trump is coming to Delaware, Ohio on April 23rd, get your tickets

It was quite remarkable that the Butler County Republican Party endorsed Jim Renacci for Governor of Ohio during the upcoming primary vote. Butler County isn’t the only endorsement for Renacci; he is picking them up at an increasing pace as the stretch toward election day has come closer. However, the Butler County Republican Party is one of the strongest conservative forces for good in the nation. Every officeholder in Butler County, which has over 400,000 people, is a Republican. Butler County likes its Republicans, and to turn away from the current governor and political heavyweight Mike DeWine is quite a public statement. It shows the tremendous Republican strength of Jim Renacci, but it also indicates to what degree Mike DeWine has lost the conservative base, and deservedly so. DeWine has operated as a Democrat. He was horrible during the Covid crisis. In many ways, he led all the blue states in lockdowns and has been a complete embarrassment to the Republican Party. If there were a picture of what a RINO looked like (a Republican in name only), Mike DeWine’s face would be their despicable example. But an endorsement from the Butler County Republican Party was no easy thing to give to Renacci. The DeWine name has been in politics for a long time, and in a less turbulent time, an endorsement of the incumbent governor would be assured. However, the times are turbulent, and Mike DeWine has led disaster straight to all our doorsteps by letting global oriented health experts tie Ohio to the sinking ship of lockdowns and mask mandates destroying businesses and people’s lives ruthlessly as the grips of authoritarian power seized all rational thought and turned DeWine into a modern version of the insane Roman emperor, Nero. Jim Renacci was a chance to start over, and when the Republican Party of Butler County was ready to make that change, it’s quite clear that the rest of Ohio was too.

I have loved Jim Renacci from the beginning and spoke to him personally during his campaign several times. He is poised to bring a Jim Renacci version of Florida’s Ron DeSantis to Ohio. I think Jim can be better than DeSantis, who has set a very high bar in many ways. Just a few days ago, I had a chance to talk to Jim Renacci again, this time for a long time in a somewhat private setting, and we talked about Trump. He didn’t want to say if he would get a Trump endorsement at that time. We talked about how tough it would be for Trump to pick anybody as an endorsement because if the other guy won, Trump would have to work with the loser when he returns to the White House in 2024 after the shellacking that is planned for the insurgent Democrats after this upcoming 2022 election. Jim Renacci was undoubtedly part of the puzzle in retaking America from the grips of Democrat activism. But again, DeWine has been in politics for a long time and has worked with the Trump administration before. In public, the relationship was workable, but behind the scenes, not so much. At one of the last campaign events Trump held in Ohio when DeWine tried to get on the stage with the president, the public booed him off, embarrassing DeWine tremendously. Trump supporters had not forgotten what DeWine did to Ohio during Covid, and they let him hear about it. A few weeks ago, I had a chance to meet the governor in Columbus, and it was evident that he was a shell of his former personality. He knew he was in political trouble. He screwed up Ohio under his first term, and he would have to pay for it. So to answer the question of endorsements, Trump is coming to Ohio on April 23rd to Delaware, just north of Columbus. Renacci will be at that event to meet with his old friend, Donald J. Trump. Get your tickets and witness history. 

So now is the time for Joe Blystone and others who are also running for governor to put their name behind Jim Renacci. They are polling at 20% or less and are not picking up endorsements, which is an early indicator of people’s voting in the primary. Joe Blystone might be a good guy with conservative policies, but he doesn’t have the depth that Renacci brings to the table, and he’s not going to get it a month before the election. Instead, he could hurt the sizable lead that Renacci does have over DeWine by staying in the race. There is undoubtedly a home for good people like Blystone in a state run by Jim Renacci. He would essentially be an extension of the Trump administration, just as Florida is presently. But splitting up that Republican vote by skimming away 20% off the top would serve only one purpose, the chance that Mike DeWine might squeak in under the door due to a split-up conservative movement. That is undoubtedly the situation with the top four candidates for the Senate, one of the primary reasons Trump is coming to Ohio on the 23rd to settle a tight race so the party can unite behind his pick. Voters want to know who Trump wants to work with within the coming days, so the need to clarify things just a few weeks ahead of the primary election is necessary. Of course, it’s risky for President Trump to put his name behind anybody since all four of the candidates are running on a Trump platform of America first. But Trump isn’t afraid of risks, and this visit to Delaware shows it and the kind of leadership that a real leader brings to politics.

That is the same situation for candidate for governor Ron Hood and his running mate Candice Keller. I think they have value, and I’d hate to see them waste it fighting against Renacci for some slice of the Trump vote when the real villain in the race is Mike DeWine. Everyone needs to unite to ensure that Mike DeWine is defeated, especially with an upcoming Trump visit to back candidates and endorsements like Jim Renacci has with the Republican Party. There are still plenty of Never Trumper RINOs in the Republican Party who will show up and vote for Mike DeWine. Even though Blystone and Hood have no chance of catching up to Renacci before the election, if they were ever going to, it would have been before now; being in the race forces Renacci to have an unreasonable lead over DeWine to win the election. Without them in the race, Renacci would win for sure. So there could be only one reason they would stay in the race because they secretly want to help DeWine, which would then destroy their brand for any hope of a political future. It’s time for them to pick sides and back a winner. In this case, it’s Jim Renacci. It really shouldn’t be hard for them; whether the issue is constitutional conservativism or abortion rights, Renacci is so much like Trump policy-wise; he will listen to people who are further in the conservative movement than he is. But DeWine isn’t. So it should be an easy decision if those candidates genuinely want what’s best for Ohio. Once the Republican Party of Butler County makes their pick, it’s a good indication of what Ohio is going to do. And they have great things to offer the Republican Party; they should be involved once Jim Renacci is elected governor, and Ohio can then become much more of a MAGA state than it is now. We can then become the Florida of the north and perhaps do even better.

Rich Hoffman

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