An Election With Something for Everyone

The Democrats jubilantly predicted that there would be a mighty
"Blue Wave" which would sweep them into power, driving out
scads of Republican members of Congress in both chambers,
as well as change the political landscape of many states with
new governors and new legislators. The Republicans confidently
asserted that they would stop any "Blue Wave" with a red one of
their own. After the dust settled, neither color wave prevailed
but each side made gains, some of which were surprising in
scope and some in even happening at all.

The Democrats captured control of the House, while the Republicans
added a couple of seats to their slim majority in the Senate.
I have yet to see the tallies for the governors and state legislatures,
but with great sorrow I must report the defeats of my state's
courageous and principled governor, Scott Walker, who lost by a
razor-thin margin to an over-glorified bureaucrat, Superintendent
of Public Instruction Tony Evers (he oversees the public education
system of Wisconsin), a very left-wing ally of the teacher's union.
Your observant Peasant listened to the election returns on
WISN1130 AM Milwaukee, and just around 11:00 PM one of the
co-hosts for the broadcast announced "Breaking news! Breaking
News!", then said that some bags containing cast ballots suddenly
appeared in Milwaukee County. With Governor Scott Walker
starting to pull ahead in the statewide vote tally against Democrat
challenger Tony Evers, this discovery could certainly have great
bearing on the electoral outcome. Well, it certainly proved to do
that; after the counting and adding of all of the votes, Evers finished
ahead of Walker by 1.2%, just enough over the 1% threshold in which,
by a law signed by Gov. Walker, put the results just out of reach
for an automatic recount as mandated by the state and paid for by
same. Attorney general Brad Schimel lost his contest by a similar
percentage to Democrat challenger Josh Kaul. Interestingly,
the Republicans held onto their majorities in the Assembly and
the Senate, even adding a few seats in the process. Lots of
ticket-splitting here, to be sure. But why would our state's voters
cast out Walker and Schimel, as well as elect Democrats to the rest
of the state's Constitutional offices (Treasurer, etc.), but keep the
GOP in control of both chambers of the state legislature? Most
curious.

Now, Walker could still have requested a recount, but would have had
to pay for it himself, that is, his campaign team and/or the Wisconsin
Republican Party would have had to foot the bill. Or, Walker could
have asked for an investigation by the state's Election Commission to
investigate the matter to see if there was any shenanigans.
Your inquiring Peasant asks this question: How was it that these
ballots, most of which happened to have been cast for the Democrats'
candidates for Governor as well as for Attorney General Josh Kaul
(who likewise edged incumbent Republican Brad Schimel), were
--- lo and behold! --- found so late in the count, and right at the time
when both Walker and Schimel were starting to take the lead in
their respective races? How very convenient for the Democrats!
And now we Wisconsinites are out two excellent public servants who
had greatly improved the quality of life in the Badger State.
More bad news from here: my longtime Assemblywoman and State
Senator Leah Vukmir lost her race for the U.S. Senate to incumbent
Democrat Tammy Baldwin. I'm still trying to figure out how that
happened! One key factor: Baldwin and the Dems raises three times
as much money for Baldwin's campaign as had Vukmir. And your
favorite Peasant has a sneaking suspicion that some conservative PACs
and similar groups which had funded Leah's GOP primary
opponent Kevin Nicholson may have petulantly given little or
mo money to her campaign after her primary victory. I shall of course
investigate this matter to see what happened and shall report what
I discover here for you, my tremendous readers, to read and mull over.

There were similar happenings in the gubernatorial races in Georgia
and Florida, and the U.S. Senate race in the latter, but happily the
Republican candidates fared better in these three contests.
U.S. Representative Ron DeSantis overcame a mudslinging campaign
by Florida Democrats and their candidate, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew
Gillum (an avowed socialist, by the by; gee, the Dems are nominating
more and more of such candidates in state-wide and national races!).
Gillum and chums tried to paint DeSantis to be a racist, but not many
Florida voters were buying it. Outgoing Gov. Rick Scott also won a
whisker-close race against incumbent Democrat U.S. Senator Bill
Nelson, after nearly two weeks of a contentious recount took place
showing Scott winning by 10,033 votes, after Scott had been at first
declared the winner with over five times that many votes. Nelson
wisely conceded the race after a manual recount was done, showing
the narrower margin of victory for the Scott.

In Arizona, very far left-wing Democrat Kyrsten Simena, who has
stated in an interview just before the election that she had "no
problem" with any American going off to join Al-Qaeda or any other
terrorist group in the Middle East and repeated a reprehensible joke
uttered on The Daily Show calling Arizona "the meth lab of
Democracy" won a nail-biter for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by
retiring Republican Senator Jeff Flake, defeating GOP opponent
Martha McSally amid some questions regarding voting irregularities
there. Could this be an electoral pattern with the Dems?

The Democrats captured the House of Representatives, gaining a slim
majority, while the Republicans added two seats to their very slim
majority in the Senate. I have yet to see all of the gubernatorial and
state legislative race results, so I don't know which party has what
in terms of either. But I will say this: At least as far as my state goes,
there were two factors which made for much closer races for governor
and attorney general than there should have been.

Here in Wisconsin both the Republicans and the Democrats superbly
turned out their voters. The polls, especially in Milwaukee and Dane
Counties (Madison, our capital city, is in Dane County), were absolutely
slammed by the voters coming to cast their votes. However, the Dems
did an even better job of this, as their voters were motivated by their
long-standing hatred for Gov. Walker, fueled by his signing his massive
reform package featuring Act 10 (which clipped the public sector
workers' unions' wings as far as their hold on their rank-and-filers
as well as tremendous influence on state budgets) as its centerpiece,
then fanned by the winds of failure to do anything about it all until
this election. What put them over the top in the gubernatorial and
attorney general contests was the discovery (!) of 45,000 uncounted
absentee ballots after 11:00 PM, three hours after the polls closed.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the city waited to count
those ballots until after they counted the ballots. Okay, fair enough
so far. But Brian Reisinger, a spokesman for the Walker campaign,
stated "Thousands of ballots were damaged and had to be recreated,"
what supposedly happened is some of the ballots were damaged by
a machine that opens the envelopes in which they were sealed before
being brought to the election officials' tables for counting. "Until
there is a comparison of the original ballots to the recreated ones
(replacing the damaged ones), there is no way to judge their validity."
Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson said that Evers
received double the votes cast in Milwaukee County as did Walker,
the breakdown being 263,199 votes for Evers against 124,880 votes
for Walker. Although Walker has long had a contentous relationship
with Milwaukee's municipal and county governments, he was quite
popular with much of the electorate when he restored order and
integrity to the county government and its budget in the wake of
the Tom Ament pension shenanigans after Walker defeated Ament
in a recall election to become the County Executive. Milwaukee
County is, and perhaps always will remain, a very blue (Democrat)
county, but Walker attracted more votes in his races there, including
the 2018 gubernatorial contest, than many other possible GOP
candidates would have. Your dependable Peasant, who takes nothing
for granted, asks another question; if there were damaged ballots,
and plenty of them (and maybe there were), was there any switching
of some votes for Walker and Schimel, thus given to Evers and
Kaul? What an opportunity for such mischief with there being
damaged ballots, or even merely the claim of there being damaged
ballots! Again, all the more reason why Walker and Schimel could
have, and should have, called for an investigation.

Finally, your quizzical and sorrowful Peasant has to ask: How many
voters who had elected Scott Walker governor in the first place, and
had voted to keep him through the controversial recall attempt and
his campaign for another full term after that. turned around and gave
Walker the boot? What was your reasoning? What did he say or do
that suddenly put you off, what legislation did he sign or veto which
angered you? Perhaps some of you turned him out because you thought
it was "time for a change", that someone from the other party should
have a turn as governor like a child having a turn at riding a shiny new
bike bought for his brother so said brother wouldn't "hog" the bike?
I personally do not know anyone who voted for Evers against Walker
for this vapid reason but anyone here in Wisconsin who did so as
far as I'm concerned can take a long walk off a short pier wearing
cement swim trunks! People who vote for such nonsensical reasons,
who don't care about the stands of the candidates on the burning issues
of the moment, who don't give any thought to the direction of their
communities, their state, the country itself should simply stay home,
or at least do anything other than vote! For they have neither the good
sense nor the maturity to inform themselves about the candidates and
the issues in order to make a rational, logical, and informed decision
about our governance and are therefore derelict in their duty as
citizens. These people are not fit to govern themselves, nor to
have a hand in deciding who should govern us.

So, as far as the battle for the direction of our states and our country
goes, this election was a push, a draw, a wash. But it can certainly
be said that in the election results there was something for everyone.


MEM