Tag: Republican Party

Why Mark Welch is the Best Vote for the 52nd Ohio House Seat: Like President Trump, a business background is the key

There is no question who I think the right candidate is for the 52nd House District seat in the Ohio House of Representatives, and that is Mark Welch. The reasons are well articulated in the below video when at the West Chester Tea Party Candidates Forum all the people running for office were asked to state what experience they were bringing to office. In my experience with these kinds of things I have reasoned that there are always well-intentioned people who enter public office, but what comes out on the other end is a mashed-up caricature of what went in. The pressures that come with any political office is enough to turn even the best people into sheer terrors. The ideologies that get them elected are shredded once they realize just how difficult public opinion can be in aligning those thoughts with the realities of anything with money attached to it. I wouldn’t say it’s the only option, but I think successful businesspeople are an essential criteria for any elected office. People should have had a few good decades of running a successful business before they ever seek an elected office, and Mark does. He talked about that experience a bit and how the success of Donald Trump as a president is further proof of the fact in the following clip.

Every time I go to these things, debates and forums where the public can analyze their options for elected office, I am always surprised by the naivete of the candidates. Whether its for a school board, trustee position, or for a house or senate seat, the things that candidates believe would make them a good representative in elected office are not the skills needed most often to do the job. Just being a good person, or a well intentioned one isn’t nearly enough, you have to be tough and to protect your ideas against the realities of nature itself, the human minds who have their own ideas about things and will try to persuade you and manipulate you infinitely into mistake after mistake. And with public office comes the responsibility of managing money, often vast sums of it. I have written enough material to fill many books on the failures of Lakota schools, and many other public education facilities because essentially they elect school board people who are well intentioned but not even closely competent to handle such large budgets or to even know to ask the question as to why any management of public money is in most cases illegal for them. We end up with a bunch of people who love children and want to see the best for them but they get eaten up in a system designed to loot off the taxpayer at every turn, and because they are so naive they just play along to get along which then makes them a detriment to their constituents, who are often frustrated that they have no other options to manage the money.

Having a business background prepares a political candidate for all the temptations of a public office, not just the management of money but the temptations that come with power. Every supervisor or manager from Burger King to P&G know that those working under them will have offers to sleep with co-workers, and to pick favoritism over one person for another based on a variety of reasons. People who are in charge of things get offers that others do not, and the more power you have, the more offers you get. There are always people willing to trade favors for benefits and as a businessperson you must understand how to deal with those temptations. I would say one of the best parts of President Trump that I recognized early on was that he had already made every mistake known to man before he ever entered public office. He was an international playboy on his third marriage, yet you could tell from his kids that he understood the value of things because they showed it in their demeanor. And I am happy to have been right about him, he’s great largely because nobody can tempt him where he doesn’t want to go. The unbuttoned blouses don’t steer his attention anymore, and he already has vast sums of money in the bank, he can’t be bought by any world navigator of malicious intent. He comes to work every day with a clean mind for the task at hand and he leaves the same way, because as a businessperson, he has been forged to such a hardened state.

These days I don’t trust anybody without such experience. Just being a parent who raised some kids and decided to fill their time with public service doesn’t come close to preparing for any position. Or a person who has been in the military. I have found that military service is not a good way to prepare for management. The candidate gets used to taking orders or giving them in a structured environment that is extremely expensive and can afford to be inefficient due to the vast amounts of money that taxpayers spend on military service. That’s not to say that such people cannot be good managers of money, but it certainly doesn’t give them some leadership advantage over two decades of a business background where every kind of problem and temptation a human mind could think of has had to be navigated in order to have any measure of success. Military service does not provide that kind of leadership and I see it every day where people with full careers in the military struggle to deal with the problems of an unstructured civilian lifestyle where people are free to think, do, and say whatever they want, whenever they want to. Any politician touting a military record is one that does not know what they are getting in to. A military record shows that the candidate can stick with a commitment, and can follow orders, but on the downside, it doesn’t prove that they can think outside of the box to solve problems or that they can handle the temptations that come with power. Quite the opposite, they are often ill prepared to deal with the unstructured personalities they will encounter as brokers of power where everyone they deal with is a smartass and a potential con artist.

What I love about Mark Welch and George Lang for that matter is that they have been successful as businesspeople and like President Trump are at places in their life where they are still hopeful every day about the possibilities that are available. They are not bitter and always looking in the rear view mirror, but have so much experience in dealing with problems, problems that they have paid for on their own dime, not the dime of the taxpayer who often has to pay for political mistakes with vast sums of lost money tossed right out the window. Mark has been there and can see good from bad and can resist temptations when a lobbyist sends in some scantily clad 25-year-old chick into his office to get him to vote this way or that with the promise of a dinner afterwards. He’s at the place in his life where he can pass on that invite, because he knows the intent because he’s seen it before. And those temptations aren’t just directed at men, women get their share of the same, but the temptations come in different forms, but are just as bad.  Just ask the partiers on the Lakota school board what happens at night when they think nobody is looking.

A business background for me is the deciding factor in elections. If you get a chance to vote for someone who has been successful in business, vote for them. Even if they have some stories of bumps and bruises along the way, they will be vastly better than the newcomer to politics who hasn’t been in charge of much in their life up to that point. The newcomer will have to make all those mistakes and it will be on your dime, not their own. The businessperson will have already seen those temptations and had to make critical decisions at pertinent junctures just to survive and if they are able to show success in business at some future date, that means they have been vetted to reality and will likely know how to deal with trouble while in office. And that is the best trait that Mark Welch brings to the 52nd House seat that nobody else can claim, and why he should be the one to win it on March 17th in the upcoming primary.

Rich Hoffman

I Can’t Wait to Vote for Mark Welch: Sad to hear, Jennifer Gross has been a Never Trumper

After watching the debate performance at the West Chester Tea Party Candidate Forum between my pick for the 52nd House seat in Ohio Mark Welch, and his rival Jennifer Gross I was very impressed with both of their answers on the 2nd Amendment. I have known Mark for many years, before he ever ran for any office, so I know clearly where he stands on things and he has not been a disappointment. He’s had some temptations come his way as the West Chester Trustee who worked with George Lang to bring so much prosperity to the area and I know that I can trust him in Columbus where things get quite a bit more difficult. My comment to Jennifer was that I wish she wasn’t running against Mark because I’d love to vote for her for some other position. For me she was a bright spot of the evening and I enjoyed talking to her. Apparently, our paths have crossed in the past on projects and so talking to her after that event was a real pleasure. However, as an employer getting ready to vote for a new hire for an important House seat that means a great deal to our area, Mark is still my guy without question. And here are the reasons.

There is a lot of talk in this election about the establishment being some kind of maniacal force that must be overthrown, especially from Candice Keller. But I could write several books about all the work that has gone on behind the scenes with great leaders like George Lang, and Ann Becker to push out the RINO Republicans and build an Ohio Republican Party that is firm behind President Trump’s administration. That is why we recently had a big party for Trump in West Chester that drew a large crowd and Lara Trump herself came to Jungle Jim’s in Fairfield recently to help raise money for the Butler County GOP. Todd Hall as Chairman has done a great job in shaping the current GOP along with Sheriff Jones. I have done my fair share to help shape the kind of people we wanted in those positions and I am very proud of the result, of the people who are now office holders that would never have been if we didn’t start working to get real conservatives on the Central Committees. If there is anything really good that came out of the Tea Party movement, it was that, and the result is that we now have options at high office in the Statehouse like George Lang and Mark Welch, who were born out of the Tea Party movement and are now part of the Trump Administration as far as policy at the local level. So the establishment isn’t so bad anymore, I would say its actually quite good and I have no problem naming myself as a proud, Trump Republican.

In fact, I was never anything but a staunch Republican, no matter how much disagreement we may have had within the party, success does unite people in a great way and Mark Welch was there when it wasn’t cool, and he has done all the right things, and learned all the hard lessons to run that 52nd District seat wonderfully. But after checking out Jennifer’s background, I am not so sure about her yet. I’d need to see her vetted a bit before I’d vote for her in a key spot, something like a trustee seat, or even the school board. I really like her, she is a good personality and a sincere person, but her history as a Never Trumper concerns me greatly as indicated by some of her online postings shown within this article. I’m certainly never one to push away a potential friend or partner, even from former rivals. People learn things in their own way, and I am not rigid in accepting people who have seen the light into being part of a solution in the future. There were a lot of people who were Ted Cruz supporters in the last election that had a problem with Trump. There are of course the Ron Paul types whom I never was a blind supporter. I have never called myself a “libertarian.” I am a Republican in the purest form of it and likely always will be. But I don’t expect everyone to have those firm convictions.

That brings up my other issue with Jennifer, with all that said, she has made comments that she doesn’t associate with being a Republican which is a deal killer for me. It’s not just about party, but its about values. She obviously by some of her messages has some strong feelings about Mark Welch who is my friend because he has many of my shared values. Mark will clearly represent my Republican sentiments in Columbus the way I want to see. But since Jennifer doesn’t care much for Mark and obviously has stated that she no longer identifies as a “Republican” it breaks my heart to see that she’s not where I’d like her to be in life so I could give her a vote. Because I think she has the talent, certainly the charisma. But I’m not sure she can hold a note under pressure on the big stage. I’d need to see her support this current Republican Party and survive some pitfalls first. I understand that sentiments change and with success under Trump, things are much clearer than they were for people coming out of 2016. But I’ve always thought the same things and I know Mark Welch has too. He’s never been a different person. My experience with him is that he holds back a lot, he’s more a man of action than of talk so he doesn’t sell himself enough. But he’s relatively new to this political game himself. He started off as a trustee and has worked his way to where he’s now poised for a more complicated office. And its not about just straight up votes, its about team building for bill passage, and that means that you need to know how to work with the party in charge and not be some outcast that screws everything up. It’s a tough business and it takes a very likeable, and charismatic person deeply rooted in their own belief system to navigate the lobbyists, the pressures in the hall outside the chamber and the constant stream of negative emails because you didn’t vote this way or that. It always takes knowing how not to stumble over the media when they are trying to twist every word you say to play the gotcha game. I know Mark can play that game. Jennifer in my thoughts needs some practice.

When the smoke from this primary on March 17th is over, I hope to see more of Jennifer. I’d like to see her work herself into a party endorsement and to start building some bridges which is what a republic style of government requires. It wouldn’t take much to make me vote for her, just consistency and to fit into the team that has been building in Butler County in the GOP. While individualism is the key to representative government the passing of laws and the art of representation requires those extra team building skills, just as every corporate environment demands. Being a solid individual is needed to fend off the wolves who want to turn every politician into a corrupt specimen. But you must be able to win people over to your way of thinking in a republic and that isn’t easy under the best of circumstances. Its wonderful to say we should never have party politics, but in Columbus we have majorities and minorities and that is needed for all kinds of checks and balances, and that is the framework that anybody going for a State seat must navigate to do the good work that needs to be done. I can’t wait to vote for Mark Welch, he has worked hard and deserves it. And I look forward to getting behind Jennifer Gross at some future opportunity if such a chance presents itself.

Rich Hoffman

Bernie Sanders is the Democrat Frontrunner: Socialism, communism and the ‘Call of the Wild’

It is ironic that as Bernie Sanders won the Las Vegas caucus over the weekend that critics of Donald Trump—largely Democrats are trying to start the rumor that the Russians are helping to get the president re-elected. Now logically, why would the Russians ever want Donald Trump re-elected, he has not been good for them, that’s for sure. But Bernie Sanders is one of their own, a devout communist who chose out of all destinations in the world the Soviet Union to vacation on his honeymoon because he was so love with communism and obviously still is. There is no evidence to even support the accusation yet there it is, the Democrats have stated it because they see where the road is going and they have no control of their car going over the cliff. It is as I have said from the beginning, Democrats as a party affiliate with socialism and communism. When we spoke about Barack Obama being a socialist and that was so scandalous, just a few years later the Democrats are forced to reveal it about themselves, and now Bernie Sanders is well on his way to the nomination from the Democrats to be the person to run against Trump for the White House.

I was in the green room at WLW a long time ago, not that long ago it seems, but its been a few years and I was talking to some of the talent there and their producers about my opinions on public education being a gateway drug for socialism. As I said to them, which they were clearly uncomfortable with, was that government schools, and our government in general had quite a love for socialism and that was what they wanted to see implemented in the United States. And that my writing about it took away the fine points of my funding arguments about public schools because it was too far outside the mainstream. I of course replied that what I was saying was the truth and that people just weren’t ready to admit it to themselves—so we agreed to disagree and stay off that topic while on air at WLW. They of course love the high school sports programming, especially in the fall when they read the football scores and talk about the various games around the city late into Friday nights of broadcasting.

Actually, I took grief from just about everybody for my position on schools. There were some really violent discussions when my children were getting ready to be college age from family members who thought my opinions on our education system in general was going to destroy their lives. My kids are in almost in their 30s now and we always had a close relationship and they are glad they listened to dad on the warnings. Everyone they know who has gone through the meat grinder of public education and the liberalized college experience we provide are lost and confused as young people. Granted, all those kids had parents feeding them literally into the system like trees into a woodchipper grinding them into dust completely and leaving nothing behind. It wasn’t easy to go against the trends of the time, but without question I was the most voracious reader of anybody, and I did know better. The truth is that I have always loved education, just not the kind that government schools were offering. Its not just teaching that matters, its what is being taught, and I will argue all day long that its better not to teach things if the only option is a bunch of communist and socialist garbage.

What brings this position to mind is the new movie Call of the Wild that I remember well was required reading in school and looking at the way that climate change is being paraded around now the communist activism of government schools couldn’t be clearer. Even way back then, several decades ago public schools were pushing climate change in mandatory reading like Call of the Wild which effectively puts the reader in the mind of the dog as he realizes how small he really is in the scheme of things and surrenders himself to the “Call of the Wild.” We are all disposable after all yet the earth continues on long after we are gone just as is was before we ever came to be. Its kind of a hopeless view of the world that is designed to put the people receiving the education into the mindset that all is hopeless, and all thought is perishable, so why bother. The state is there to protect the environment and of course the people are there to protect their government—first by surrendering their identities to the Call of the Wild. Listen to that call and become one with nature. Isn’t that the message of the Woodstock Festival, or any rock concert?

I always had those thoughts about rock concerts, and nigh clubs in general. When I was a late teenager I had been reading a lot of Joseph Campbell and was very interested in tribal rights, where individuals sacrifice their integrity to the needs of the group. Every rock concert was a kind of mass sacrifice where people surrendered their values to the band on stage and danced to their impulses, not to their own thoughts. It was a kind of Call of the Wild to listen to the pulsations of the rock group KISS talk about sex on stage and cause very nice girls to lift up their shirts and show their breasts to 20,000 people. I was often the guy who drove to these things because I didn’t like to drink much and was always the one with the best car. Some of the girls who would go with us to rock concerts were so nice and respectable daddy’s girls. They would give no sign of being loose sexually and kept their short skirts pushed down when you looked into the back seat to check on their comfort. But once in the rock concert dancing to their favorite songs, those panties came off and were being thrown up to the stage where the performers were. And their breasts were unleashed to the world. Afterwards, they would blame it on the alcohol, on losing their minds to drugs and the pulsations of the environment as if that would explain it all. I knew different, it was a mindset that was given to them in public school when leftists teachers made them read Call of the Wild and to write a report on its merits. So when given decisions in life as adults for the first time, they ripped off their clothes and shamed themselves for all their future families by getting into a mosh pit and surrendering their individual selves to the chaos of mass ownership.

So why is anybody surprised that the guy who calls himself a socialist, and has even supported openly Soviet style communism is leading the Democrat primary? Why did WLW not want to talk about the role that public schools play in programming young people to vote for such people? And why do nice young ladies go to night clubs and rock concerts and do things in public that they would never do while on a date with a nice young man? Its because of the belief patterns that create socialism and how it is taught, not realized through natural selection. Most people when given a choice once more wisdom comes to them later in life turn toward Republican ideas. But by then most people are so compromised with embarrassment that they spend the rest of their lives trying to continue their scandal with some form of consensus building. The Friday night football scores are always a welcome distraction, not just because sports is fun and interesting, but it reminds the consumer of the information that they weren’t the only ones who embarrassed themselves, so the actions don’t seem so bad. As adults, they don’t feel they have the authority to tell their kids that Bernie as a socialist is bad for their lives, so they keep their mouths shut. But for the next generation in the dance clubs and at rock concerts, those disgraces are happening almost every day, and to cover their behavior, they are voting for Bernie Sanders when given a choice. And that is who the Democrats are.

Rich Hoffman

The Debate for the 4th District Senate Seat in Ohio: George Lang was the clear winner

Prior to the primary election for the 4th District Ohio Senate Seat where George Lang, Kathy Wyenandt, and Lee Wong debated for that seat, the video included was done by TvHamilton at the Benison Event Center. For those seeking to understand the candidates prior to casting a vote, here they are. One notable mention is the disgraced GOP candidate Candice Keller who did not come to participate. It appears that this was the last of the candidate forums before the primary and she had not been participating anyway, so she was represented here by an empty seat off to the side of Lee Wong. Feel free to share these contents with a friend, neighbor, or curious onlooker intending to vote on March 17th along with the brief summation that is included.

Without question to my eyes George Lang won this debate easily, and he should be the next senator for the 4th District. But ultimately its in the hands of the voters. George’s answers were very polished, as we’d expect, and was the obvious choice deserving a vote. As is clear in the debate George can hit all the notes and appeal to the voter base that has various degrees of passion about the topics that are important to us all. Few people but George could have talked about Agenda 21—something that few established politicians could ever get away with, and he appealed to moderates by stating that he was friends with Kathy Wyenandt and was willing to work with anybody over anything. He is very Donald Trumpish in that he has quite a range of abilities in communication that just about anybody can relate to, yet with his core beliefs, he believes in helping businesses which obviously help voters with good jobs and secure futures. He is also a big Second Amendment guy who is every bit as committed as the most staunch supporter without the drama of a crazed radical.

And as the current Ohio 52nd District representative in the Ohio House, a seat that Kathy lost to him in her attempt to enter a political seat as something other than a school levy supporter for the Lakota schools, George specified what he has been doing and wishes to continue to do to bring more business opportunities to Ohio. As he pointed out there are several problems that are facing our state, for one, we are bleeding young people. Our youth are leaving for destinations they perceive have more opportunities leaving us in a bad state for attracting workers for more industry wanting to move into the area. As he said, that is leaving a recruiting problem for less imaginative industry that is looking for fertile recruiting grounds for their businesses and with so many youth leaving the state after they attend college, the numbers just haven’t been there. Personally, I think this is a problem of human resource departments and not the actual demographics, but George wants to overcome that problem with incentives to have a booming population that can attract the best that the world has to offer by way of jobs. For instance, he used Butler County as the example of how the rest of the state should look, which currently has a population of around 400,000 people of good income and plenty of opportunity.

One issue that was talked about in somewhat agreement by all the candidates was Ed Choice which is currently bringing great stress to public schools all across the state with report cards that they think are unfair as vouchers are now traveling from students to the private school of their choice leaving the broken funding model that schools use exacerbated beyond repair with worry in how to maintain their exploding budgets. As George pointed out correctly, the government schools are strapped with regulatory burdens that make it hard for them to compete with private schools and he is looking for options to make it more fair for them to attract customers as the trend is to send money to the students and not the school real estate that the schools reside within. Kathy had articulate answers but unfortunately she has a long way to go to fully understand the true problem. The state of Ohio cannot come up with a proper funding model for their schools so long as the budgets that they are asking for is filled with entirely too much Parkinson’s Law, where school levies get passed and the labor unions lobby for more increases to consume the total amount of surplus that is gained in property taxes. George’s ideas are moving more to deregulating the impositions that public schools have to live up to with report card needs mandated by the state, whereas Kathy’s thoughts were to protect the system that we have in place that has all the inflated funding in it. Lee Wong didn’t know what to say, he hardly seemed to understand what the question was.

Speaking of Lee, the West Chester Trustee who is running as a Republican, he stated during this debate that he thought of healthcare as a right. I’ve been saying about him that he is a Democrat that is only running as a Republican because Butler County is full of members of the GOP, which is why things tend to be so good. He has no other path to office other than to try to sell himself as a Republican whereas he is clearly a Democrat, even a socialist in many cases with positions like his on healthcare. Of course, George’s answer is to have more competition and to bring down the costs with more options. Kathy as the only stated Democrat on the stage was looking for more of a centralized committee approach that is aligned with other Democrats on the matter. But clearly she wasn’t very interested in the topic as her primary concern resides on education issues which constitutes her only real political achievement, the passage of the Lakota levy of 2013 which instantly gave raises to teachers, some of which were making six figures, and placing those inflated wages on the backs of Lakota residents who weren’t very happy once they learned what Lakota really wanted to do with the money they extracted from the public.

Essentially the summary of the debate was that Kathy Wyenandt agreed with George on most every issue except for school funding, because that’s her only real experience going into this election. She’s essentially an education lobbyist who thinks she has enough juice to deal with multirange needs as a senator, and compared to George, she has a lot to learn. Lee Wong is an old rival of George’s from West Chester and he really didn’t seem to care if he won or not. His hope seems to be to help Candice Keller with a split West Chester vote that might hurt George and give a radical rival a chance to knock George down in the primary. He was unprepared for this debate and obviously aloof. Only George Lang showed any real promise as a state senator in the kind of capacity that is expected out of the job. And that really isn’t a surprise, but it is good for everyone to see for themselves, for those who couldn’t attend that night. The proof is here, you don’t have to take anybody’s word for it, watch it for yourself and be sure to vote on March 17th, 2020.

Rich Hoffman

Candice Keller, Locked in a Vault, Yet Nobody can Find Her: A campaign doomed from beginning to end

I had hoped that the rumors were not true and that Candice Keller would in fact be at the Butler County Chamber Coalition debate for the 4th Ohio Senate District at the Benison Event Center in downtown Hamilton. But like the giant bank vault of that old building that has stories to tell going back to the gangsters of prohibition, not even Candice was inside. All of her that made it was her name tag at a table where she should have been if ever she hoped to be a real candidate for the upcoming primary election on March 17th. I had hoped to talk to her, to salvage her political career somewhat by getting behind George Lang and living for another day, but she didn’t even show up to have that conversation. Instead, it appears that her phobia of public speaking was true and that her weak speeches at the State House were more than just a rookie learning her way in a new office, Candice has a real problem getting her thoughts across to the public in events like this one, which is crucial to any viable candidate.

A lot of people have such phobias of public speaking and being judged by so many people, but anybody running for a big office must understand that these expectations come with the territory. In her case she managed to offer something fresh to her district and people gave her a chance largely through church networks and Facebook. But people expect their political representatives to learn as they go and events like the one at the Benison Event Center are part of the job, and winning those debates are expected. The job for the 4th District Senate Seat is bigger than a Facebook campaign, these types of things are how politicians communicate to their constituents, not just through quips to the media, but in presenting herself to a crowd that isn’t always happy to see her and to win them over. That’s part of the game. Instead, Candice had an empty chair with her name on it, and her son showed up to video the other candidates to see how the professionals did it. But her empty seat was quite a statement, it said a lot more than if she had come and made a fool of herself. At least if she had, people might sympathize, but instead all she gave the audience was the impression that she didn’t even care enough to arrive.

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The Vault in Hamilton Ohio. #travel #life #family

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What her son was able to record was a very polished George Lang who is the obvious front runner deliver very well on all the questions that were asked of him. George is the real deal at every level, he is good with people, honest, understands the needs of donors, and he can reach across the aisle to work with anybody on anything. Candice’s son also saw a very sharp Kathy Wyenandt who will be the Democrat nominee after the primary. All evening she and George spoke well together in a polite way without surrendering their integrity, but in the manner that both of them could go to Columbus and get bills passed by members of the various influencers. Even if Candice did luck out and Moses came to separate the Red Sea for a freakish win at the Republican primary, for which the entire GOP is asking her to resign due to her reckless commentary about Nazis and gay people, Candice doesn’t have the horsepower to beat Kathy Wyenandt in a head to head race. Currently, the way things are, Kathy has a numbers problem, she’s running as a Democrat so no matter how good she is, she’s on the wrong side. But with the GOP not behind Candice, and Keller looking to be terrified of public debates, she would have no hope of winning a major election against Wyenandt.

That is why I wanted to talk to Candice, to help her see the light before it was too late. Instead, she is off on a fantasy that she can avoid these kinds of things and still win with a Tea Party like activism. Only I was there when the Tea Party was young, and so was George Lang. Many of the best conservatives today in the GOP are from that movement. What Candice and what’s left of the Tea Party are those who have not found an identity in the new focus of leadership that has emerged under President Trump. They haven’t made the transition from rock chucker to leader. George Lang certainly has; he is very much the Trump Republican in the race. When Trump comes to town, its George that he would seek, certainly never Candice, especially in the wake of her media troubles. She’s toxic poison right now with no future in sight once she steps out of her House seat and that would be a real tragedy to the election that she did win.

Keller’s son was also able to record the bumbling lunacy of Ding Dong Lee Wong who had a terrible debate. An absolute disaster. I would say about it, at least he had the guts to come. However, afterwards when everyone was talking during a social hour Lee disappeared rather quickly. The group I was talking to figured that it was because East Avenue was nearby, and he was likely going on shopping visits for his old friend Robin McDaniel—the “working girl.” Of course, before going Ding Dong Lee Wong said that the solution to the employment challenges were to just let in more Chinese people, or something to that effect, which left the audience baffled and looking for more to come. But at least Lee was there to make a statement, which was more than Candice. All jokes aside about the brevity of Lee’s post-debate networking, the obvious front runner of the debate was George Lang as expected, and Lee looked to understand that after this season of debates, this one in Hamilton being likely one of the last before the primary. Any hopes Lee had of landing a blow against Lang that could damage his frontrunner status was gone and so was Lee’s spirit. I almost felt sorry for Ding Dong Lee, but because I know the history of how much he hates George Lang, I won’t go so far to reach out an olive branch. He can wallow in it for plenty as far as I’m concerned.

Once the room had cleared and everyone went home, I did ask the caretakers of the place if I could look in the vault to see if Candice was back there somewhere. To humor me, they actually looked with me holding that name tag to identify Candice.  Nobody was in the vault, but it was impressive to look at such an antiquated structure from the years long gone. It reminded me a lot of the campaign of Candice Keller, confined, locked up, and even looted beyond comprehension. Her perceived path to victory was to lock herself in such a vault to the outside world and hope that some miracle might happen to get her elected into a high office by just throwing rocks outside those confines at a genuinely good person in George Lang. She should know with all her supposed Christian values that lying about people as she has been disparaging the character of Lang to such a degree won’t get her any keys to heaven. I’d love to help her with her problem, but all she gave me to work with was a nametag and an empty seat and the perception of an audience that already thought of her as a loser.

Rich Hoffman

Why Nancy Nix of Butler County is one of the Best: EdChoice and how Ohio needs a better funding model

I just want to say after seeing her at a number of political events recently, especially at places where George Lang and Mark Welch are present that Butler County is very lucky to have such a great treasurer in Nancy Nix on her third term. She is so good at what she does that I’d like to see her on her 100th term in the future. It is always wonderful to meet competent people who understand the details and Nancy Nix does. She is part of the puzzle that has come together so nicely in Butler County Ohio politics where a really good management team has risen to the occasion of our times to bring residents the best services possible that government could hope ever to provide. She has been on my mind a lot lately not just because she is a supporter of George Lang and Mark Welch, but because of something she said a few years ago about public school levies that are very relevant to the current challenge of EdChoice forcing local school systems to change the way they look at their funding.

Let’s face it, the whole progressive concept of attaching state money to a school located in a physical real estate concept was dumb from the beginning. It was just another brick in the road that has led to a pathway to hell. A lot of older people, like Bill Cunningham on WLW radio are struggling with this whole EdChoice concept because they only know of school systems being attached as the center of a community complete with sports programs and sentiments of school days long ago ended. These are the types of people where class reunions mean something, so it is painful for them to even consider that a child might want to pick up and move to another school across town and to take their state funding with them if that school isn’t very good. So far the focus of the argument is that the state report cards are unfair, but the bottom line is really in consumer confidence, do parents want to send their children to that particular school and how can the school market themselves in a way to make whatever the state report card says be the destination of hope for a parent and their child. In the future of education, it will take more than winning football programs, kids will actually have to learn things and be places that are good. A good school should not be determined by good real estate, it should be because the school managed itself well, spent their money wisely, and produced a superior product in a free market fashion.

Nancy has experience both at US Bank and as a Plant Controller so she gets money and how it’s a measure of value. I have worked with a lot of controllers and they are normally very boring personally, but beautiful people because their minds are very mathematical. Nancy has all the traits of the best of controllers, but she isn’t boring. She has a real passion for accounting and it radiates from her in such positive ways, so it surprised me when she came out publicly taking a position against several local government schools on their attempts to pass another school levy for what they were saying were, “safety needs.” Nancy stated, “Our homeowners are already heavily taxed, and its very difficult for many residents to make ends meet. My office receives handwritten letters daily from taxpayers needing help keeping up with their real estate taxes. Those who get too far behind can lose their home. Our county has passed 40 or so levies in the last 10 years and I’d argue some were for far more than they needed.” I found that very refreshing coming from a county treasurer who was looking at the big picture for a change and I’ve loved her ever since.

Her statements on that levy issue have come back to me now that all these lazy superintendents of some of the major government schools in the area, like Mason and Lakota have been complaining about losing their state funding due to EdChoice. What do they think is going to happen, that they are going to ask for more levies to cover their ridiculously bad management? Every controller I’ve ever dealt with would look at the way ANY public school is ran and demand an instant layoff to balance the books because the income is not conducive to proper balancing of the books. In fact, if Lakota had a proper accounting “controller” they’d have a shit fit on their hands due to the insane perception of what value is for the scope of the product, the education of the students based on state and local tax revenue chained to them like some masochist in a bondage chamber. The relationship with the community is about as dysfunctional financially as is conceivably possible and whenever it gets questioned the school hides behind the children imprisoned there due to their lack of choice in the matter—because the system gives money to the school, not the student. Government schools as Nancy pointed out, ask for too much too often. And I would add that they do it not because they need the money but because they know they are so inefficient that they take more money from people to manage their inefficiencies. Nancy has seen the backend of that problem when people write her to say their taxes are too high, and in too many cases, they lose their homes because the taxes are so terrible.

At the center of the problem is the perception of what the state should be giving to students, which is why Bill Cunningham’s troubles over the EdChoice issue is so comedic. The value of the education is just assumed as it has been set by the chaos of the government schools joined together by their collective bargaining agreements and the state is supposed to come up with a model that just rubber stamps that sum—whether its $6000 per student or $12,000. The numbers are inflated by these school districts to cover the high cost of their government employees and not the needs of the child. This is because of Parkinsen’s Law which states that the sum of needed money fills to the supply of funds. If a school levy passes and there is a cash infusion, then the union contracts will fill to consume the entire amount. Yet the kids are still coming out as bad as if they went to a third rate school, they can’t read, they can’t think, and they take on too many social beliefs rooted in liberalism. That’s not what we should be paying for. I would argue that if the state supplied only $2000 and schools had to compete for business that is in the marketplace, that the price to educate children would go down dramatically. That is when the state could provide a proper, constitutional, funding model.

Its just good to know that there are people like Nancy out there supporting other good Republicans like George Lang and Mark Welch, and many, many others. Good people tend to gravitate toward each other and she is one of the great ones. I appreciate that she is the treasurer of my county, and that our finances are in as good of hands as they could be. Most accounting types are alike in that they see beauty in numbers and can utilize that talent where needed. But Nancy has a different gear where she doesn’t just get lost behind some wire rimmed glasses and a big desk separating her from the world. She is connected and approachable, but more than anything, she does her work for all the right reasons and I’m glad she’s around.

Rich Hoffman

A Miracle in West Chester: People brought together to cheer on a president who wasn’t even there

As there was an event dedicated to President Trump held by a combination of people important to the re-election actions needed in 2020, I was reminded of some of the more subtle realities of leadership management that don’t get talked about much. To comment that there was a Trump rally in West Chester, Ohio that drew a very large crowd, and he wasn’t even there says a lot about just how good this president is in ways that modern academia is clueless about. They can’t teach this kind of leadership effect at West Point, or any institution of learning, because the contents of its power are so elusive that it is beyond the measurement of modern methods. But I have come to understand it in my own way, the nature of influence leadership and just how important it is into shaping the world that we know. Even with all the attacks against President Trump, and the attempts to prevent the inevitable that comes from his raw enthusiasm for everyday life, I have watched his remote influence shape directly the lives of a cast of characters I have known within the Republican Party in such positive ways that it has been almost magical, straight out of a Disney movie.

Locally within Butler County where Republicanism is almost a regional consideration, the values have not always been aligned. I was reminded at that same event by several people that the Butler County Republican Party supported John Kasich during the last election, and we all watched that character fall from grace completely, and totally making himself a national embarrassment along the way as he made a hard left on the political spectrum almost toward the death and resurrection of Karl Marx himself. Even for me, I had been in conflict with many of the people celebrating the Presidency of Donald Trump. We all had differences rooted in positions along that political spectrum, yet at the event, we were all friends united by a common love, and understanding that Trump brings to everything he does, and that is the element that makes him so good. He unites as all leaders do people’s attention toward the obscure and they love him for it.

Even now, I see that the person I had been supporting for Senate, Jim Renacci has conflict with the current governor of Ohio Mike DeWine. I could tell similar stories about many people attending the West Chester Trump Rally on January 30, 2020. There were people there who had been at each other’s throats in years before, myself included, but with a little Chick-Fil-A offered up as a food option and a lot of positive sentiment directed toward the stage where current politicians reminisced about the Trump presidency, there was great love born from the experience where those differences melted away like a spoonful of butter on hot pancakes in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It was quite something to witness.

I have been warning many who have been in the fight for a long time not to become too in love with the thrill of the fight, and the nature of conflict, because at some point there will be a unifying circumstance that will bring everyone together as friends again. So its important to be open to that friendship when it gives rise to the opportunity. Its also important not to put away the weapons of war too deep into the closet either. Just because everyone has found unity in an idea, conflict is still the bond that creates future friends and pushes for the development of new frontiers of thought. Sipping tea and conversing over lattés doesn’t get you there. Team building comes directly out of people unified by necessity and war still is the most unifying function that can focus people’s attention on the things that connect them, not what divides. Part of the reason the Democrats are so floundering to find solutions for themselves these days is that they have used an attempted need to create hatred for President Trump to move their base forward, perhaps in the way that the Tea Party movement thought of Obama. The problem is, President Trump is a very likeable person and he has managed to unify nearly the entire spectrum of the Republican Party into a happy family, maybe as much as would ever be possible, and he has done it in a remarkably short period of time.

I was part of many conversations in those early days of Trump among those same Republicans, many whom supported Kasich for President, or Ted Cruz types. Some of us still had old war wounds from political endeavors where we all weren’t in agreement, particularly on public union issues. But under the pro-growth policies of the Trump approach to things, many of those concerns have been crushed under the sheer optimism of a Dow Jones marker near 30,000. I think it’s a lot to ask of any expectation, but if we can’t get politicians to agree on cutting out the fat in their budgets, Trump has chosen to think big and grow our way out of it. Even for me, I can see a path that will deal with the national debt in the next term as all these pro-growth strategies will begin operating in the black. That doesn’t solve the problem of debt spending by a government out of control, but the Trump solution of solving part of it with sheer growth has put the knives back in their sheaths and allow friendships to spring forth once again on unified fronts. That doesn’t mean that constructive conflict won’t continue, but perhaps instead of slit throats it will only be arm wrestling.

The media seemed to have difficulty understanding the story of this Trump Rally in West Chester, because as they kept saying, Butler County is Trump Country. What’s so big about a rally there with or without him. Where is the news? Of course, the prejudice from newsroom directors is obvious, they could find a story in a cat stuck in a tree, so their choice is not to give any positive news to the public about anything Trump does. But their boycott on logic went deeper to that, to an almost subconscious understanding of this leadership issue, and that the Democrats just don’t have an equal. But outside of the conflicts of politics, the story is in the long reaching effects of good leadership and how unifying it can be in obtaining goals everyone can agree on. That to my eyes is a miracle of modern splendor nearly unheard of in the history of the world. It was a good story to see, so many wild and woolly Republicans of all different backgrounds and needs unified in such a wonderful way, that was a news story that should have made front page news in any other time. But because the other side doesn’t have a comparable advocate, the results are being ignored in hopes that the greater world might not yet be touched by such a miracle. And to know the characters involved in this shin dig in West Chester, calling it a miracle is an understatement. Yet former enemies were now friends, and the seething combat that often takes place on Facebook and during fierce campaigns was now cheers for a president far away in Washington D.C., not even there to shake hands and pump his fist to the crowd, and that was something to behold for the prosperity of all time to witness.

Rich Hoffman

What I Like about George Lang: He’s the perfect compliment to the Trump administration at the state level, and takes the Dirt out of Politics

One aspect of this modern Republican Party that has evolved over the last decade in Butler County is that it is very effective and surprisingly unified. I had been thinking about it for a while, but the matter became quite clear for me at the launch event for George Lang’s run for senate in Ohio. While there I found myself associating in a friendly way with many people, I would have called rivals years ago. Suddenly they were friends largely because the party had united so well behind the Trump administration. Ten years ago, we called more liberal Republicans RINOs while I ran more with the Tea Party Crowd. Then during the primaries, everyone had their various picks. Some liked Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, or his dad Ron. Others liked the way the Bush family ran things. I was from the very beginning a Trump supporter, so there were obvious disagreements when Republicans came together for something like a public announcement by a great politician like George Lang. But at this most recent event I couldn’t help but notice how unified everyone was and it was good to see.

After George made his announcement and many politicians came forth to give their endorsement and tell stories of why they supported George through testimonials, seen in the video above, Sherriff Jones and I reminisced a bit about the last ten years while walking through the parking lot of Miami University’s Hamilton campus. As we talked it became obvious to me that the Trump presidency, which has deep roots into Butler County, had gone a long way to uniting Republicans in a way I could have only dreamed of. And it was only natural that a person like George Lang could build bridges in a positive way with all the different types of people that were in the Republican Party and get so many people to come forward to say such nice things. The Trump administration in all its genius had united Republicans in ways that just weren’t possible prior to 2016 and I was very happy to see it.

During all this contemplation I was thinking about why I liked George Lang so much and had for such a long time. I was very happy to hear that he was running for a senate seat, but I wasn’t sure why until after his announcement event. It wasn’t just that I liked him as a person, it was for another reason, a more important one. I have been involved in politics at many different levels for several decades, and it has been my choice to stay on the outside as much as possible to avoid too much corrosive contact. But I have never felt that way about George, whom I have now known for well over a decade. Even in the hardest of times George has always been a solid person and loyal to free market ideas, especially when they weren’t all that popular. Yet to my eyes he has always been constantly a good person, and that was rare in politics.

A lot of my reason for staying on the outside looking in, even when the door was wide open to step inside, was that I have always viewed politics as a dirty business and honestly, I don’t like the dirt. I’m happy to sling mud when challenged, but personally, I’d rather think about big things and find ways to bring about larger concepts to people. So politics just wasn’t conducive to that kind of thing. However, over time, George has pounded away his own kind of honesty in politics and it has shown to be a different way of doing business as a politician. George can still go out and raise the money it takes to run big campaigns, and associate with people all along the very fine edge of the political spectrum without becoming so disagreeable that relationships are no longer possible. George had found a way to work within the political spectrum of Republican politics at the local and state level without losing himself along the way and to me that is enormously encouraging.

Political enemies of George might want to roll their eyes at my assessment, but I have been with George through some perilous times and I know the guy well. I know his family and a dishonest person just can’t cut it with those kinds of relationships. George is an honest person who stands by the people close to him through thick and thin and oozes sincerity. Sure, there is always someone out there who wants him to do something that he doesn’t want to do, or that he disagrees with, but he never seeks to make an enemy out of them. Yet he has a tendency to stand resolute and that does make enemies. But that’s part of the territory. You can know a person by the way they are when the cameras are not around and nobody else is looking. And in those conditions, George Lang is the same good person. That ultimately is why I like George Lang so much; he takes the dirt out of politics.

George was going to be successful in politics whether or not President Trump ever entered the White House, but due to the current political circumstances, a politician and businessman like George Lang is poised to do much greater things than ever before. Under the Trump administration good people like Lang have far more clout than the back-room dealers of yesteryear and that was as much of a relief to the other Republicans giving testimony about George’s qualifications for higher office as it was me. Truly we are experiencing a new day in politics, something that none of us had ever seen. Trump’s presidency had like a vacuum sucked up all the disjointed disagreements and plotting for power that used to go on for the sake of obtaining any elected office and replaced it with a sincere effort to be a part of a greatness in keeping America great now that it has been built that way once again.

There is tremendous room in the years to come to make Ohio one of the great economic powerhouses of the world and George Lang sees it, he has always seen it. I remember a very dark time when he and I stood in the parking lot of a restaurant and contemplated the universe and how unfair it seemed at the time. Neither of us thought we’d be able to do much to help it. But George has always been the same person, from that hard time to the opulent present, he’s had the kind of integrity that is contagious to other people and a real desire to help people reach their full potential in life. And for George, that is as a senator doing great work now that the Trump administration has set the pace for allowing such audacious dreams to happen.

You can tell a lot about a person by the type of people who will actually come forward and provide an endorsement, and on that day a wide range of people who have been in public office for a long time came forward and said nice things about George, and the event was a great unifier. If one little event can show that kind of solidarity toward purpose, just think what a senate term in the Ohio Statehouse could provide. The prospect is very exciting and is something we can all look forward to with George Lang as the 4th District Senator in Ohio.

Rich Hoffman

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Democrats are “Singing in the Rain”: What Jesus Christ and Roger Stone have in common

To understand just how bad the whole Roger Stone thing is context is required. Trump had four campaign managers during his presidential run and two of them have now had the doors of their homes molested with early in the morning raids by the FBI to be arrested and charged by the Special Counsel generated by the firing of the FBI director James Comey. That is a highly unusual activity that has behind it a deliberate show of teeth from the political opposition that obviously controls a large part of the federal government and is making sure that President Trump knows that he doesn’t have any real power. Trump has access to the classified documents of past experiences, such as the Kennedy assassination and while he may not be concerned for himself, he is for his family. There aren’t too many Kennedys around these days, are there? It took a few years for everyone to crash airplanes or to mysteriously run their faces into trees during sky trips, but Trump can at least see from the classified documents what has been done in the past and can match it up to the present.

To understand just how bad it is someone from the Mueller investigation tipped off CNN to be at Roger Stone’s house as the FBI showed up with guns and body armor to arrest a 66-year-old man just for making a prediction that turned out to be right about the actions of Wikileaks. As I watched the video from CNN of the Stone raid by the FBI, knowing what we do now about the Clinton case, and the DNC paid for dossier against Trump that was used to manipulate FISA warrants, and the text messages from Peter Strzok and Lisa Page I couldn’t help but think that Stone should have been armed with lots of guns in the house and he should have defended himself from a criminal government obviously abusing its power and has gone rogue. The federal government is not abiding by a Constitution, they are seeking a takeover of America and are essentially a corrupt government beyond repair which is precisely why we have a First and Second Amendment in the terrible case that we may need to use them to retake out government back away from tyranny.

For the last two-week I kept hearing from older members of the Republican party to stay the course and have watched the gradual erosion this week of conservative resolve especially in the wake of what happened to Nick Sandman from Covington Catholic at Washington D.C. I happened to be listening to WLW radio with Rocky Boiman and Eddie Fingers the other day and they were talking about how stupid the movie A Clockwork Orange was and how they didn’t understand it. I really like Rocky, I’m not a fan of Eddie because of the role he played in an incident I was involved in during 2012, but I sometimes listen to them in the evening while I finish up my work for the day. Rocky is a jock from a professional football background, so I don’t expect him to be very wise on arts and sciences. I just don’t think Eddie is a very smart guy, which gives the show appeal because everybody listening is smarter than he is and it gives people that assurance as they listen. But their reaction to A Clockwork Orange, which is one of the best movies of its nature and describes quite accurately what we are seeing these days in our modern political activity is very much the way older Republicans are seeing their conflict with Democrats.

Republicans believe in law and order assuming that human nature means well and that everything will work out in the end. They have done for us, and I’m thinking of the Sheriff Jones letter from Butler County that was sent to President Bush and Obama that caused so much trouble, the same of that nice lady in A Clockwork Orange that answered to door and let the crazy youth into her house only to rape her in front of her tied up husband while the criminals sang “Singing in the Rain.” When Trump Republicans like Sheriff Jones sent that letter for which The Washington Post immediately keyed on all Trump could see around him was the menace of the Democrats, the abuse of the Covington Catholic kids just for wearing a MAGA hat, the continued stories of the government shutdown being his fault, the desire for open borders at ANY COST, and the continued harassment from an out of control prosecutor arresting everyone connected to his campaign and their public stripping of all their wealth and power as a warning to others sure to come—perhaps even Trump himself. Republicans like the nice couple in A Clockwork Orange think they can work with Democrats and negotiate with them. You can’t, Sometimes you have to kill them at your front door before they enter your house and destroy everything you have built your life around. A Clockwork Orange isn’t a stupid movie. It’s happening right now and not in some far away land of England. It’s happening in the United States and Roger Stone in some ways was treated worse than the girl who was viciously raped in that movie. CNN was called to watch him publicly humiliated as it was a direct message to President Trump. “We will get you eventually, and everyone connected to you—because we can.”

I say it all the time, people of value cannot negotiate with people who don’t have any. Above the line people cannot have equal negotiations with people below the line. This is why Republicans are always on the bad end when dealing with Democrats, because value cannot negotiate with a lack of value. The empty person has nothing to lose but can afford to do anything to take from others so to fill themselves. Those who have value always have something to lose and that is why bad things happen to good people. Nancy Pelosi has nothing to lose, because her party is always looking to take something. The new socialists in Congress have nothing to lose, because they are takers in society. They are open border abortion supporters who would love to see the destruction of the American family. They don’t have a Trump Tower and lots of children who will inherit a multibillion-dollar fortune in a few years to worry about. As Trump decided to work with Democrats and reopen the government on January 25th 2019 the Democrats just like the rapists in A Clockwork Orange were “Singing in the Rain.” And as conservatives watched the lynch mob pounce on Roger Stone by the corrupt FBI and the collusion they had with CNN, the signal was quite loud. We are all in danger.

I am not a Republican who believes that there is no place for violence. Quite the contrary, I think violence is the only leverage that can be utilized on people functioning from an evil position, and Democrats are clearly doing that. I don’t want to hear stories of cooperation with Democrats when it is quite clear that that political party wants to end America as we know it and change it into something else. I heard that same Sheriff Jones on with Bill Cunningham, which I listened to just so I could hear how the story would be spun talking about the current Speaker of the House in Ohio Larry Householder working with Democrats for a more peaceful union. That is stupid. Older Republicans who chose to believe that kind of garbage are like the woman answering the door in A Clockwork Orange, they are just letting evil into our house to cause death and destruction. What happened to Roger Stone happened because conservatives have allowed our government to get out of control. When they could they did not prosecute Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, they did not defend Wikileaks which has turned out to be the only honest news reporting agency. They did not defend Glenn Beck when he was knocked from power. They did not defend Alex Jones. They did not defend Bill O’Reilly. They did not defend Mel Gibson for God’s sake!  None of this is new.  They just keep hoping that bad people won’t show up to their door to arrest them because they don’t understand what A Clockwork Orange was all about, they don’t understand how some people can just be evil, even if that culture has now taken over law enforcement and sent young kids working in the FBI to arrest an old man before the sun comes up with CNN there to film everything for public embarrassment.

People can tell themselves what they want about Jesus Christ, that he came to earth to wash away all our sins and give us all everlasting life. I don’t care about any of that. What I do care about is that I imagine he felt the way a lot of us are feeling now as he stood before Pontius Pilatet and the crowd picked Barabbas to save. This betrayal is not new, it’s as old as humans have walked the earth. But what is new is the concept of the United States Constitution, and if we want a different outcome from what happened to Jesus, then we better start using it. And my advice is to take care of that at our front doors before the arrest is even made. Because once they take you in, it’s over anyway. Might as well make it count. At 66 Roger Stone would have done well to drop his hope of winning a crooked court battle and just had a fight to the death right then and there—because that is the only thing the political left understands and fears to lose, their own lives and comfort. That is the only negotiating tool they understand—violence.

Watch all the videos above for context.  One thing I promise is that if I end up in the same situation as Roger Stone, I won’t be nearly so nice.

Rich Hoffman

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New Emerson Poll Has Jim Renacci Catching Sherrod Brown By Election Day: The 2018 election will be won by voter turnout

A new Emerson Poll fresh off the wire tells the story in Ohio quite well. It has Senator Sherrod Brown, the long-time liberal Democrat at 49% ahead of the midterm election with Jim Renacci, the Republican challenger, at 43%. It tells a similar story about Richard Cordray who is of the same kind of liberal mind as Sherrod Brown at 49% while Mike DeWine is at 46%. Although that shows key Republicans losing, at this moment it does provide some interesting analysis. It certainly puts them in the margin of error meaning that the strength of voter turnout will contribute directly to the success or failure of Republicans. Without capturing more than 49% of voter approval neither Democrat running for the big races in Ohio can break 50% of support and that means that their base is supporting them, but they can’t get any higher. Ohio leans to the right so without breaking 50% there is a very stunning statistic there that doesn’t look good for any Democrat.

https://www.emerson.edu/news-events/emerson-college-today/emerson-poll-close-governor-races-ohio-oregon-kansas-democrats-look-pick-congressional-seat-kansas#.W9l35_ZFyM8

My thoughts on polls is that they are the best information that we have about the trends in voting, but I am skeptical of them. We can’t assume that these are wrong and are likely higher from Emerson. Data is data and we have to look at it and let it tell us the story as is. I’m quite aware of suppression polls, and the Rush Limbaugh theory of what happens as elections tighten up. No pollster wants to look bad and to get it wrong on election day, so any fantasies of suppression polls go away as election day nears, which is likely why so many Republicans across the country are suddenly looking so much better. Suppression polls of course are where pollsters take unusually high samples of Democrat voters to help make the poll tell a more optimistic story for liberal candidates to shape the narrative, particularly in early voting. The tactic is to take the energy out of rival campaigns and cause them to throw up their arms, or not spend that extra money on ads to push for final vote counts as election day nears. We know that happens, but at this point we are through a lot of that. The other thing that is certainly a factor is that Republicans and Democrats do not behave the same way. Speaking for myself I did receive this year lots of attempts by pollsters to call me, but I never pick up the phone unless I know the person calling me. Usually I’m not in a position to take a call as my day is very busy from sun up to sun down. So pollsters don’t capture Republicans like me in their samplings, where Democrats are very social people and tend to pick up their phones a larger percentage of the time. That can swing results to the +5 or to the negative side.

Yet when polling does show this tight of a race, voter turnout will be the unquestioned determining factor, which side has the most energy to support their party. Democrats have obviously been working for two years to build up the energy for a big midterm showing with their push for the Mueller investigation against Trump, for the various caravan issues coming up from Mexico, for their efforts as socialized health care and the constant protests, the drag-assing of the President’s agenda especially in the Kavanaugh situation. A combination of all those things and a constant drum beat from the mainstream media has been to suck the life out of Trump and to give it to Democrats to have a big showing at the midterms and to start the process of running the President out of power well ahead of the 2020 elections. But I see a different trend, one that favors Trump and across the country those that have been backed by Trump directly, like Jim Renacci in Ohio are doing much better than they otherwise would and if voter turnout for Republicans is high—which early voting numbers appear for them to be, then beating incumbent liberals like Sherrod Brown is not far-fetched.

All this has reminded me that if just the gun lobby showed up on election day and voted in mass that likely all the Republicans in these tight races would easily win. If gun owners voted on Election Day 2018 Republicans would win their seats, it’s that close and the gun lobby is that powerful, as it should be. That’s why Democrats hate it so much. The results of election day are completely in the hands of conservatives to win. Sherrod Brown does not have some mythical support base that cuts into all Ohioans. Even after three decades in politics he does not have voter crossover into the other party. Women are voting for liberals like Cordray and Brown at a rate about 3% higher than males, but this latest poll was put together before that disastrous debate at Miami University. In that debate Sherrod Brown’s history with domestic violence and sexual assault came to question and its likely that women opinions on that matter did not make it into this Emerson poll. So, there is room there for variation as well.

It is not smart to go into Election Day with the hope that polls are wrong and that Republicans will pick up 7 to 8% points by default, which is how it was with Trump in 2016. I was saying many of the same things then that I’m saying now and it turned out to be true. Polls get you information, but they don’t tell the whole story, that is determined by voter enthusiasm and Democrats have a flat line in regard to that. Sure, they can turn out the union vote and some radical ANTIFA types that overturn cars in the streets and break out windows, but they don’t have a smart voter class that can adjust to opposition. Their bench just isn’t that deep. Democrats require people to function completely off empathy instead of logic and Trump has been too successful to fuel radical groups to head to the polls. Even with liberal samplings being higher than conservatives who pick up the phone and indicate early voting patterns, Sherrod Brown and Richard Cordray can’t break 50% and that is the big story here. If they can’t do that under the most optimal conditions, they are very vulnerable to voter enthusiasm gaps.

My advice to you dear reader is to make sure that if you do nothing else in the next month is that you go vote for your local Republican. Take nothing for granted and don’t wait for someone else to do it for you. You need to show up and cast your vote like your life depends on it, because in some cases, it does. Democrats if they are defeated in 2018 soundly, and it looks like they will be, will never recover from such a loss. It’s true America is very divided and along party lines. The best way to change that is to destroy that other party completely and then welcome people from the other side to join Republicans into keeping America great. That is the most humane way to solve the divisions we have. Like the Civil War, it will take Democrats decades to realize they are on the wrong side of history and assimilate into the greater American culture, but on Election Day 2018 its important that we look at it like a battle that could potentially end a long war in America—and set up a new day in the life of every American, one that is much brighter under Republican control than it ever was at any point in previous history.

Rich Hoffman

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