Good read, JD!!
Kathy Barnette Can Win in the General Election
by JD RUCKER May 13, 2022 in Opinions, The Midnight Sentinel
https://jdrucker.com/kathy-barnette-can-win-in-the-general-election/
When Republicans make choices to vote for a candidate based on their stances, credentials, personality, or any other valid criteria, I never hold it against them. We may disagree, but one of the beauties of our constitutional republic lies in the way individual voters judge candidates. It’s the job of candidates, their campaigns, and their supporters to make cases for them and against their opponents. Whoever does the best at this generally wins.
There is only one criteria that chaps my khakis when cited by conservatives as their reasoning for voting for or against someone: Electability. While I completely understand the surface-level logic behind it, the Republican Establishment uses this as their primary angle of attack against America First patriots they don’t like. That’s why when I hear people say U.S. Senate candidate Kathy Barnette from Pennsylvania is unelectable, I shake my head.
Let’s look at reality. Those in corporate “conservative” media at Fox News, Newsmax, Breitbart, and others are playing the “baggage” card against her. They are playing on the gullibility of Republican voters who fall for the Republican Establishment’s scam over and over again. If it were true that “baggage” based on past remarks or controversial opinions were disqualifying, then Donald J. Trump would never have won the primaries, let alone the 2016 and 2020 elections (the latter of which was stolen, of course).
By the Republican Establishment’s standards, Ron DeSantis and Greg Gianforte should never have won their gubernatorial elections. Like Trump, DeSantis and Gianforte had major baggage attached to them, FAR more than what’s being attached to Barnette. By the Republican Establishment’s standards, Mitt Romney and John McCain should have won their presidential elections while Jeb Bush should have been the 2016 presidential nominee.
Their standards are dead wrong. It’s a con. It has been proven time and again that their semi-logical but mostly flawed approach to primary candidate selection is the antithesis of how elections actually play out. We need bold candidates who paint with bright colors, not people like Dr. Mehmet Oz whose policy stances are bland pastels. He likes to stay on the fence on nearly every issue because he fears controversy. He wants to seem electable.
Those who don’t want to vote for Kathy Barnette because they don’t like the things she’s said in the past or they believe her resume is questionable are absolutely fine in my book. You’ve done your research and you chose a different candidate, which I absolutely respect and even admire. I disagree, but we don’t have to agree on the right path for every issue. We love America and we want to make things better, so I have no ill will to those who make that choice. We will still fight side-by-side against the radical leftists regardless of how the primary on Tuesday turns out.
However, those who think they’re doing the right thing to beat the Democrats by picking the “strategic” choice of someone with less baggage do not earn my respect. They are the gullible people who allow the Republican Establishment to stay in power. They are the people who encouraged Donald Trump to surround himself with “strategic” choices like H.R. McMaster, Rex Tillerson, John Kelly, Mike Pence, Omarosa, Anthony Scaramucci, Mark Esper, Jim Mattis, John Bolton, Jeff Sessions, and Reince Priebus.
Anyone who thinks Kathy Barnette has too much baggage to win in the general election denies what Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Greg Gianforte, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, and Lauren Boebert taught us in recent years.
As I noted in a previous article, the rumor spread by Sean Hannity and others that she had an “embarrassing” loss to a “weak” Democrat in the 2020 congressional race is absolutely false:
What Hannity doesn’t mention is that the “weak” Democrat was Madeleine Dean, a Democrat incumbent in a very blue district. Compared to Dan David who ran against Dean in 2018, Barnette dramatically outperformed him, getting 48% more votes than David got in his race against Dean two years earlier.
Hannity and others are hoping that voters will equate losing in 2020 in a congressional race to a loss in 2022 in a senate race. This is unambiguously false and extremely disingenuous for them to rely on the ignorance of many voters. Her very strong performance in a very blue district is why she would almost certainly win in a statewide senate race.
Kathy Barnette is a fighter. She is a passionate Christian and a staunch America First patriot. If you disagree with her stances or qualification, I accept that. If you’re trying to strategize to get another RINO to DC, I stand athwart.