You can read my highlights for what to watch tonight in this sad, sorry example of a Kentucky election right here.
Also, you can follow my live scribbles on the Twitter Death Contraption right here tonight. I’ll be reporting live from the joy-filled victory celebration at Williams-Farmer/RPK headquarters at the Marriott Griffin Gate in Lexington, with my incense, forehead dot and idols. It should be a blast.
Who are you going to vote for? Maybe instead of Steve, Dave and Woody… you’ll want to write someone in.
Or maybe you want to follow the lead of Mr. Ronnie Cottonpants. Over the weekend he laid out a serious — and strong — argument for why you really should vote for Gatewood. Or perhaps you don’t want to anger Jesus H. Christ so your vote is automatically ordained to Williams.
And what about the other races? Can the Dems sweep? Can Crosbie surprise? Will Bill Johnson purge the voter rolls?
Election Day is one week away, folks, and there’s one guy — Bill Johnson, Republican candidate for Secretary of State — who’s waging war on democracy. Letting him into office would only escalate his mission.
I’ve had a long life and I’ve done a lot of different things – over a decade of service in a military career as an Army Platoon Sgt, I owned a 25-acre farm and made a living as a farmer, was in the construction business for a while, and even owned a computer business.
I was a Army Platoon Sergeant, serving from 1972 to 1983, and I’ve done my
time to protect this Democracy. Questioning my right to participate in
it just doesn’t seem right.
I’ve been a respected leader with technical skills and a lot of experience, so like I said, I didn’t think I’d end up homeless, but I ended up on the street just the same.
Lots of people might be closer to that than they think. Just losing your job might make you homeless. I’m not trying to scare anyone, but we’re a lot closer to being in the same boat than some of us think.
Bill Johnson wants to Don, and folks just like him, their Constitutionally protected right to vote.
That alone — and there are plenty of other reasons — make it plain Bill Johnson is unqualified for the job of Secretary of State. You know, since the SoS is supposed to oversee elections and protect peoples’ right to vote.
In one of the few somewhat entertaining races in this 2011 Election season, the Secretary of State race is on the airwaves.
Bill Johnson released his first ad earlier this week, an action packed 17 seconds that explains how the Secretary of State has nothing to do with abortion… or, how it does? Who knows. But it’s really simple. Simple sentences. Simple words. Or just word. Sometimes just word. You’ve officially spent more time reading about it than this Bill Johnson quickie will take to experience:
Meanwhile, Ms. Grimes has a 2nd ad. What it lacks in grandmas it tries to make up for with glowing text. If we elect Ms. Grimes, Frankfort will be lit up by explanatory text and thus it will be simpler to do business. And it doubles up Big Bill in length:
The takeaway from this head to head advercontest? One candidate understands what the Secretary of State actually does… and the other one is confused. In Bill Johnson-speak:
Republican Secretary of State candidate Bill Johnson is on the warpath, churning out fantastical stories of homeless people and poor people usurping our elections by the tens of thousands, all controlled by shadowy forces bent on enslaving the rest of us under socialist tyranny.
Bill Johnson’s scaremongering is ridiculous, it’s funny, it’s insane. It’s also dangerous.
In case you’ve missed it, Bill Johnson is convinced that homeless veterans are being bussed in to our cities to illegally vote for Democrats. Bill Johnson believes that a non-existent organization with a supposedly anti-White army is secretly acting behind the scenes to commit election fraud on the grandest scale. (You can view highlights from Johnson’s recent debate below.)
So now Kentuckians for the Commonwealth are getting involved. KFTC has a long history of standing up for and protecting voter rights. Broadening and strengthening Kentucky’s democracy is at the core of their mission — so the fact that they’re pushing back against a Secretary of State candidate who is claiming that same passion for democracy should make it quite clear who’s side you are on.
This letter is hitting mailboxes statewide. It reads:
Kentucky’s Demucracy is under threat and I’m writing today to ask for your help in turning things around before Kentucky’s statewide election on November 8th.
For years, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth has worked to make our Democracy stronger. We help ordinary people become strong leaders, help citizens lobby their government, and educate the public on issues affecting them. We’ve registered tens of thousands of Kentucky voters and have championed legislation to make it easier for everyone to vote. We do all this because we believe our Democracy works better if all its citizens have a vote and a voice.
We’ve made a lot of progress, and our work has made Kentucky’s Democracy broader, deeper and stronger.
But now that progress and much more is under serious threat from a man named Bill Johnson. He’s running for Secretary of State, Kentucky’s chief elections officer and he’s leading his campaign with a platform that will disenfranchise homeless voters, make it harder for elderly people and others without photo IDs to vote, and prevent former felons from regaining their right to vote.
The letter is written by a mother, grandmother, former Lady Cat who is also a former felon — she has served her debt to society and she has turned her life around. And she has gotten her voting rights restored. Which seems common sense enough — and of course, that’s reason #1 why Bill Johnson might be opposed to it.
The letter continues:
We have to do something. Let’s tell Bill Johnson that we will not allow him or anybody else to silence the voices of hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians. Let’s remind him that everyone has a right to be involved in choosing our leaders and making decisions affecting out lives.
KFTC and its members are now planning a targeted media and field campaign to challenge Bill Johnson’s plan to limit democracy in Kentucky. You can help.
And by supporting KFTC, you’re not just supporting their work to protect democracy, you’re helping to protect Kentucky’s enviornment, its future and its working people.
As if Bill Johnson did not embarrass himself enough on Monday evening in his debate with Alison Lundergan Grimes on KET — in which he ranted on and on about rich people’s kids being kidnapped and the obvious socialist threat to democracy that comes in the form of homeless people and has led to the ouster of good Republican public servants like Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul and replaced them each with Red Commies — there is more embarrassment to come.
Mixed in with his claim that the most important part of a Secretary of State’s job is to protect the rights of people who may or may not ever exist (yes, that’s the most important), Bill Johnson took fantastical thinking to a higher level and claimed our democracy is being attacked by a nonexistent organization.
Bill Johnson’s favorite Secretary of State in history is… Trey Grayson. The guy who was just there. And the guy who for years allowed ACORN and other radical left-wing forces to usurp our elections by bussing in tens of thousands of homeless veterans to vote illegally for Democrats.
Later, Goodies pressed Bill Johnson over this plank in his platform. Bill Johnson explained that homeless people should not be allowed to vote. Because they have no address, all Kentuckians who have fallen on hard times — which is increasingly likely given the policies being pushed by members of Bill Johnson’s own party — should not be allowed to vote.
And if we make exceptions for economically struggling Kentuckians, if we allow poor people to vote, then where will that take us? Bill Johnson has the answer:
What about somebody wealthy for example, who may be afraid? Because their house may be robbed? Or their child may be kidnapped?
That’s a fair comparison. Poor people who’ve lost their homes and want to vote… and very rich people who are being targetted by criminals who have absolutely no other way to locate their address or their child’s school or where they go on vacation without accessing voter rolls.
Just embarrassing.
As Ms. Grimes said in response:
“I have come to believe that his actions and statements are not for a lack of understanding but rather they are an intentional misrepresentation of the law. And that’s wrong for Kentucky. That’s wrong for the people of this state.”
She then went on to explain clearly the law of the state, the very law Bill Johnson willfully misunderstands, and the law he’s supposed to be running to enforce.
They purused this for a while, or, Bill Johnson stammered his way through some weird circular reasoning. And then he declared war on the federal government and came a hair’s width away from calling for Kentucky’s seccessation from the union:
“Ms. Grimes references the federal government. Is this the same Federal Government that says Obamacare is constitutional? Is this the same Federal Government that’s got us $14 trillion in debt. The same Federal Government that’s attacking our coal fields, telling oil companies they can’t drill. The same Federal Government that’s stampeding all over state‘s rights and individual rights. Frankly, our constituchu, our constitutchia, our constitution is what’s important.”
Can you really trust a man who calls for revolution but who can’t pronounce the word ‘Constitution.’
Oh… and then later he went on some wild riff about abortion which further demonstrates that he doesn’t quite understand what a “Secretary of State” does, or at least he’s pretending not to.
Also, he apparently refers to “the homeless” as just “homeless.” As in:
“I’ve talked to homeless.”
Seriously. He said that. Anyway. I could go on but here’s the entire hour boiled into about 3 minutes, and missing questions from viewers, half of whom were on indecipherable phone lines.
Also… as you watch that… ponder this question. If voter fraud is as widespread as Bill Johnson claims, if the nefarious forces of ACORN that he talked at length about last night (which no longer exist) are actively stealing elections across the state of Kentucky, then maybe that is why the Democratic Party controls every single office throughout the Commonwealth, from Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul’s Senate seats to the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th Congressional seats. Bill Johnson has finally gotten to the bottom of how Democrats were able to win one shocking election after another. Perfect sense. Well-thought out. If you’re reading Bill — and you probably are — good job.
Mr. Pure Politics, Ryan Alessi, has a new poll out and, on the Governor’s race at least, it mirrors the PPP of Wednesday:
53.5% for Beshear
25.3% for Williams
7.2% for Galbraith
So if Gatewood can pick up all of Williams’ support, he’d still be down by about twenty.
[If you missed B&P's exclusive forward-looking statement predicting (with a surprise ending) the outcome of this fascinating race, you'll want to go back to that. It's the kind of in-depth analysis you will get no where else.]
In other races:
ATTORNEY GENERAL
53.2% Jack Conway, Democrat
26.4% Todd P’Pool, Republican
AUDITOR
31.5% Adam Edelen, Democrat
28.6% John Kemper, Republican
SECRETARY OF STATE
36.8% Alison Lundergan Grimes, Democrat
27.9% Bill Johnson, Republican
All those have wiiiiide swaths of “Unsures” so they are very fluid, but good news for all three Dems there.
Alessi has much, much more including numbers on other races and some fun video with David Williams saying that polls don’t matter because when you’re down 25+ in two different polls, they can’t both be right. (And further down, Mr. Edelen).