Graham & Norman head to SC runoff; Piker's pals a problem | Hour 2

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, I daily show prep with all of the links. Become a patron, go to vpetcleanershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. So, as I mentioned last hour, the insolvency impending insolvency of Social Security and Medicare within the next six years. That means that the people that we are electing in this Senate election cycle are going to be in office having to deal with a response to social securities and solvency set to hit in twenty thirty two, six years from now. So choose wisely. In South Carolina, the special primary was held yesterday and we have our matchup now for a runoff that will occur on August twenty fifth. The Republican campaign to win the nomination to replace the late Senator Lindsey Graham headed to a runoff between US Representative Ralph Norman and Lindsey Graham's sister, Darlene Graham, who is currently in the seat. She was sworn into the seat after Lindsay Graham died last month. They emerged from the special primary election field of ten candidates. The winner they were the top two voteiners in that race. The winner will proceed to the November general election against Annie Andrews, the Democrat candidate. We had. Let's see here, I have the breakdown on. The numbers to do right here, Darlene Graham with thirty I'm just going to round up or down based on the percentages here Darlene Graham at thirty three percent, Ralph Norman twenty five percent, Russell Frye twenty percent, Mark Sanford fifteen percent, Mark Lynch at six percent, and then all of the other candidates less than one percent Danny Ford, Duke Buckner, Glenda Gail Parker, Samuel sam Shepard, and Mark McBride all of them under one percent. So top two Darlene Graham thirty three percent, Ralph Norman twenty five percent. This is, by the way, from the Charleston Poston Courier. Graham and Norman were projected by NBC News, the Associated Press, and CNN to advance to the runoff. The results remained technically unofficial until certified. Norman edged out US Representative Russell Fry with about twenty percent of the vote, and Mark Sandford, who finished fourth. Sandford the former governor and representative of the Appalachian Trail. The August eleventh election came exactly one month after Graham died at his Washington, d c. Home due to a torn ajorda, and his death kicked off a whirlwind primary without precedent in South Carolina history. Darling Graham had led the South Carolina Commission for the Blind since twenty nineteen, but stayed out of the political spotlight until Governor Henry McMaster appointed her to the Senate last month. She jumped into the race for the full six year term after being urged to do so by President Donald Trump, who endorsed her and in a telephone town hall the evening of the election, credited his endorsement as the reason she decided to run. He said, Darlene had no intention of doing it. She wasn't the one to jump in. I was the one to ask her to jump in, and she agreed. Now, public polling showed Graham as the front runner and a three way race for second place being between Fry, Norman, and Sanford. Norman has represented the rock Hill area since twenty seventeen when he was elected to the US House, and he has been working to frame himself as the truest conservative and he won endorsements from, as the Posting Courier calls it, right wing hard liners in Congress and the state House. You never see the term left wingers in media reports. Democrats are never supported by left wingers. Maybe they're classified sometimes as left leaning, but never left winging. Okay. He came in to the Senate primary having just finished third in the GOP gubernatorial race, so like that gave him some statewide recognition in the very same election cycle. Right, he just came out of the GOP primary for Gouvna and then jumped into the US Senate race. Fry is a congressman from Myrtile Beach and he's the former majority whip in the state legislature in the House, and he was seen as a close competitor for Trump's endorsement. He's considered a rising star in Congress, closely aligned with Trump and Republican leaders. He's forty one and he pitched himself as the face of a new generation of leadership, willing to shake up the institution of the Senate and be an uncompromising flag bearer for Trump's agenda. His election night ended quietly in Colombia, as he likely now turns his focus towards defending his congressional seat against Democrat jo On Vincent this November. So, I guess in South. Carolina, you are allowed to run for a file, to run for multiple seats. North Carolina, you're not. You would have he would have had to have withdrawn from the congressional race, right, which I kind of feel like that's a better system. I feel like North Carolina has a better system there. So you don't have this this kind of thing where I can run for Congress and then also run for this other seat in the same election cycle, because what happens if you win both seats, right then then you just drop off of one seat and then they have to redo another election for you. And this also speaks to the off year elections. There was the most well, in my experience, the guy who most abused this loophole, if you will, was a guy named Keith Young, no relation to the WBT News guy, but Keith Young, he was a city council I think he's now back in office. I think he may be on county commission or something. I forget what he's up there doing. He's up in the Asheville area, and he runs for city council, wins, and then the very next year, because they have these different year elections, the very next year, as a sitting city councilman, he runs for county commission or congress. I forget which one he ran for first, and then the next year he runs for the other seat. So like back to back years, he's trying to run for different seats because they had four year terms in Asheville City Council, and so it's like you just use the city council election to now run for these other seats. And it's quite clear, Like I've never seen a more clear exam of somebody who is simply in it to elevate their status and to get into higher seats, higher office. Right, he's just like trying to speed run through all of these elections. And it's like, yeah, but we elected you to the city council seat, and now you're running for some other seat, Like why did you want the city council seat in the first place. You can't get anything done. You just got here, and now you're looking to leave. Why did you want the seat in the first place. And then he runs for another seat immediately after that he got voted out by the way from his city. He lost both of the other races that he was trying, and then they voted him off of the city council as well. What was turnout like, Well, participation in South Carolina during the August eleventh special primary was relatively subdued. That means low, okay, low turnout. High turnout was relegated largely to regions of the state where candidates already boasted strong followings. There were just under one hundred eighty five thousand ballots cast at the time the race was called. That is well short of the nearly four hundred seventy three thousand who had voted in the June Republican primary, so like a quarter a little bit more than a quarter. And and there was even more people who voted in the gubernatorial runoff. There was like twice as many people voted in the governor's race runoff. So yeah, these special elections matter, and your vote matters even more because the turnout is so low. York and Lancaster Counties considered Norman Stronghold saw substantially larger turnout in the early vote for Senate than they did in the governor's race, while early focused by Fry in his hometown Horry County resulted in elevated turnout there as well. So we got a couple more weeks and then we will have the special election for the six year or for the or the runoff to find out who goes to the general. All right. For over a year now, you've heard me talking about Create a Video. Great local company in mint Hill that has helped more than two million families preserve their memories by turning old photos, VHS tapes, film reels and slides into lasting keepsakes. Now creative videos helping families and groups create brand new memories while they're traveling. 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Check out group travel Videos dot com. That's group travel Videos dot com. Or call seven O four eight four six seventy eight seventy extension two O six And when you do that, ask for Katie. But Pete, can I just email? Well, yes you can. You can email Katie Katie at group travel videos dot com. Group travel videos from old memories to new adventures, preserving life's moments for a lifetime. Uh, I don't know. By the way, I don't know, Danny on the text line, what qualifies Darlene grid to be a US Senator? Well, I mean, she is getting some on the job training, and so by the time you know, she gets sworn in again, if she were to win, she will have been a US Senator for longer than any of her opponents. So there is that. Yeah, she's up against Ralph Norman. Look the I mean, these these choices are what matters. And I don't know she, like I said, she is getting some on the job training. And you know, sometimes people run for office they have no experience, but maybe sometimes that's what you want. Look at Donald Trump, right, that's what people said about Trump. So speaking of Senate races, let's take a look up at Michigan and this Democrat named Abdul or sorry he got very offended, said something like, keep my name out of your mouth. If you can't if you can't say my name, then keep it out of your mouth, or something like that. Abdul Rahua, el sayat. But sometimes he just goes by Abdul instead of Abdul Rahua, like his signs just say Abdul or sometimes doctor Abdul, which is a point of contention. He's running against Mike Rogers. El Sai Ed got out of the primary. Jim Garritett National Review notes that El Sayed's agenda is primarily one of abolishment. Abolishing private health insurance, abolishing the filibuster, abolishing the electoral college, abolishing ice, abolishing Israel, you know, the standard stuff. Despite his denials, now he has also called for abolishing the police. He also said he wants to end lifetime Supreme Court appointments, imposed term limits and allow each presidential term the same number of Supreme Court appointments. I'm not really sure how that works, like, but every president in four years gets to make one appointment or something, so. You'd stagger them somehow, I don't know. Asked about his supporter Hassan Piker's comment that America deserved nine to eleven, El Sayed said Piker's comments were taken out of context, which, try as I might, I'm not really sure what the context is. Not sure what context you could conjure up there to make America deserve nine to eleven, But so be it. Noah Rothman National Review. Also he makes the argument that this is no ordinary race. The consequences of failure extend well beyond the bounds of American electoral politics. The race is a proxy fight or a proxy war. If you will a referendum on America as a civilization proposition. And this is an up. Or down vote, and we cannot afford to see it fail an up or down vote. This may be our one shot here. I do have a clip here, This is from CNN. Where what did I do with it? Here? It is where. Abby Philip Philip Phillips, I forget if she's plural? Abby Philip asks Noah Rothman about the Republican's focus on El Sayed's religion. He's Muslim, and then Princeton political scientist Lauren Wright weighs in, So that's who you're gonna hear Noah Rothman and then Lauren Wright. There is a lot to talk about when it comes to El said, in terms of his past statements, his present positions, all of that. Is it the right political strategy for Republicans to focus on his Muslim name, call him an islam es say he wants to institute for real law versus actually just dealing with the actual policy that he supports. Unlike an all of the above. First, and when it comes to this guy, he says, you know, I'm not a socialist, not like those guys. I'm a capitalist. All I want to do is nationalize the healthcare industry, eliminate border pri control, and seize wealth, not to use it for anything, but just to make the playing field fair. But definitely not a communist, but yes, they can absolutely focus on what I regard as anti Western ideals, like the notion that maybe he shouldn't celebrate the death of Ayatola Ali Kamani because his constituencies might be sad about that. Like the fact that he. Couldn't issue a condemnation, full throat, at unequivocal condemnation of an attempted terrorist attack on a Michigan synagogue that would have killed one hundred and forty Jewish children without condemning Israel in the very same sentence. And like the fact that he peals around with the San Piker, who he can't condemn, but who has said the United States deserve nine to eleven and maybe people should kill murder Senator Scott Rick Scott. Now he said he apologized for that, but only because he was kicked off social media for saying you should kill is sitting publican office holder. All of that is fair game. This guy's a very damaged candidate and the father in law. The father in law, one of the biggest donors to the campaign and the biggest boosters, is a founding member of an organization that has been investigated for funneling money to the Muslim Brotherhood on the way to Hamas. I mean, these are really crazy, crazy things, and I think it's fair to ask questions about all of them, just like you would someone Trump's campaigning with, Just like anyone anyone is campaigning with, we would all say scrutinize them, And that's what this is. I think it's fair. Ah ah. I think we hang on a second. I think we just heard a consistent application of a standard so that if you're going if you're going to scrutinize the people around Donald Trump, then you should also scrutinize the people around el sayed, what, oh my gosh, we are through the looking glass air people. Also from National Review, Charlie Cook, he writes the American system of government is built atop the presumption that the government exists to secure the natural rights of the people and little else besides that. The DSA's vision represents a perfect inversion of this premise. The DSA basically wants to shirk all the basic responsibilities of the state, things like national defense, territorial integrity, policing, the protection of individual liberty. Meanwhile, they want to micro manage all of the private tasks that have traditionally been the preserve of civil society. Right, this is what we are being asked to decide on. Okay, which candidates adhere to which of these two approaches? You have an American approach that was, as Cook laid out right, the presumption and the government exists to secure the natural rights of the people and then get out of everything else, or flip that, ignore what the government has traditionally been charged with doing and instead have the government do all of these other things for us. And these ideas, by the way, are not nearly as fringe as they ought to be. I mentioned the other day Pete Booty gig Right in an interview on Steven Bartlett's podcast called The Diary of a CEO. He talked about eliminating the electoral college, eliminating single member house districts, eliminate, well, not eliminate, but pack the Supreme Court. He said, quote, our entire existence has been about creating a different kind of political system and introducing it to the world. But now we should be reforming, tuning up changing that political system. Like what did you think fundamental transformation looked like? So back to Michigan where l sayed beat Hailey Stevens. The Michigan primary illustrates a major problem confronting the Democratic Party, so writes Jesse Arm at City Journal, its mainstream has become increasingly reluctant to articulate what distinguishes it from its hard line left. Many establishment Democrats behave as though their own beliefs are now political liabilities, right, this is why people are dragging AOC over her Woke one point zero comment like oh so crazy, Woke one was so crazy, which would indicate I heard Christian Heinz say this on the Making the Argument podcast. He says, you would never go up to somebody after like in like nineteen thirty eight and be like, man, at World War one is crazy, right, because people would say, wait, there's a World War II coming. And that's exactly the point. Woke one indicates there's a two whether or not we are in it or not or it's coming, I don't know, but obviously it indicates that there's another series to follow, at least another and the people who were saying all of these crazy things, as AOC now says, right, they were saying all of these crazy things. They didn't stop believing them. They just recognized that it was electoral poison to them. It's how they got Trump again. Democrats once championed America as a melting pot and dissimilation as a civic ideal. Increasingly too many appear reluctant to defend those principles lest they offend activist factions determined to refract domestic politics through the ethnic and ideological conflicts of the Middle East. Right, this is, as I've said, this is the cover charge to get in if you are a Democrat, right, you have to be anti Israel. Now, There's just no other way around it. In fact, I think that's why the crazy woman in Wisconsin may have lost. She wasn't sufficiently anti Israel. Are you going to be more concerned about the West Bank than the West side of Detroit? Said the local NAACP chapter president up in Detroit, doctor Wendell Anthony. Data suggests that important blocks of Democratic voters reached a similar conclusion when you look at the Michigan Senate Democrat primary. Depending on the survey Black Democrat voters supported Hailey Stevens, the white Chick, over abdulah l say Ed somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty three all the way to forty six points. That was the margin. Black voters resoundingly went with Stevens. Yet as the Democratic coalition becomes whiter, richer, and more ideologically progressive, the preferences of these voters are increasingly displaced by an activist class whose moral imagination is organized around Palestine, decolonization and the politics of the global South. This is Third world ism. The party is shifting from the politics of the black church to the politics of the campus encampment. The tentafata. I think he's exactly right, and Black voters are going to have a choice to make. And I've said this for probably somewhere in the neighborhood of about fifteen years that if Black Democrat voters or black voters i should say, were to split their vote like every other demographic does, the Democrat party is finished at the national level, which explains maybe why the Democrats are reaching out to embrace the Muslim candidates. Because the turnout for Muslim voters in the Michigan primary very large, and they all went for lsied because they vote in a block too. And so Democrats now are trying to swap out another block, just like they did with the white, blue collar, working class, blue dog Democrats. Right, they've already done this. They shed different parts of the coalition. I'm not saying Republican. The Republican Party doesn't do that either. The parties do. Right, you have a coalition, You've got all these different groups that are part of the you know, quote unquote big ten and if a member block starts feeling like their issues are not being addressed and they don't have any pull inside that political party, they will look elsewhere. Right, So now it's on the Republicans to offer a message that is attractive enough to break them away, to break them away from the increasingly radical Democrat party. By supporting the same candidate whom she warned voters was unfit, Hailey Stevens, though diminished her own credibility and validated the activist left's long standing critique that establishment Democrats ultimately stand for little beyond holding office. Right, she ran around saying that el say Ed was unfit for this office, and as soon as she lost she endorsed him, and that is exactly what the DSA says. Why they hate the Democrat establishment. It's because all they're in it for is power, as if they're not, as if DSA isn't. But it's just power dynamics. This is Marxism. It's all about the power dynamic. Political parties rarely defeat their radical fringes by conceding the radical's moral or political premises. If any Democrats hope to reclaim the political center, they'll first have to stop apologizing for occupying it for now. L Sayed's victory says less about the strength of radicalism within the party than about the unwillingness of Democrat moderates to defend their own convictions. I would add, if they have any A text from Jeff with a G says, isn't the world full of comic countries that these Commi candidates could preside over rather than trying to wreck the world's greatest anti Commi country. Well, no, that's the point. The point is to wreck the country because it is not communist. That's the point, right. The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution. They just op out different things, and this is the red Green Alliance. You've got the Commies and you've got the Islamists, and they're like, let's make common cause because we both hate the same thing, which is Western civilization. We both hate America. So we're going to try to take them out and we will partner up and we'll figure it out afterwards. And by figured it out, I mean, you know, try to kill each other. But for the time being, let's just focus our attention on winning power. So this brings me to James. Carville, which really is a perfect encapsulation of the problem. So few well, this would have been June. James Carville had said on a podcast that it's time to talk about the S word. Mister Vajah in New York Times reported, and I have the quote right here. I'll get to it. She is against. Passed off all the views uh shares attack interracial relationships in the American flag. Lady, I ain't in the same part as you. I'm sorry, I just not. And I actually do think it's time for Democrats to talk the S word. Skise them, really do everybody's always said no, no, we were coalition with big tent and there's some there's just some ship that I can't be in the same camp. And we talked about what Madoni was three for three last night in Manhattan. They call it the comic Corridor. Fine, Jason Crow's service pack vote bets ten for eleven. You wouldn't know, Jason Crowe is, Yes, okay, you wouldn't. You would't know. You wouldn't know how Sandbury exists. You wouldn't have. And I want to be very specific. I understand the Free the Free Press for being here because they nominated do or something like that would be the same way. Understand all that to extent. Understand the Times because there are the New York Times, so they have to cover. There are the hometown newspapers. But the idea, the idea that we must neglect everything else is going on, all of these other primaries, all the recruit sation, has all huge phenomenal successes we've had, and declare that the party is now under the control of a Democratic Socialist of New York City is insane. But and understand, these people do not like Democrats. Not only are they not democrats, they wish democrats poorly. So I just cannot. Maybe there's a way that you can say to I guess madamie is the leader of it is. You know, you insist that you try to insist that the people that run into Europe banner run as a democratic socialist and don't use a democratic party is your guideline. And let's negotiate the terms of a schism here. Maybe we can, we can part under some kind of advantageous terms for both of us. But I'm done. I'm not in a political party. I am totally comfortable in a political party that spends time questioning the policies of the government of Israel. In fact, I'm an enthusiastic about that. I don't want to be in a political party that denies the. Right of the state of Israel to exist. That's just not I just can't do that. I'm sorry, it's just not do it right. So, yeah, you're not going to be able to negotiate a schism. You vote communism in, but you have to shoot your way out, Jeans, that's how that goes. Now. He went after Hassan Piker, who is campaigned with El Sayed and all of these comminges up in New York City, said if the streamer becomes a force within the Democratic Party, he says I'm out of here, except now he's singing a different This. Is either going to be hosting Piker's party or it's going to be the party of their congressional candidates. We can tell us who Hasten Paker is. James Ow. He's some guy that's got a podcast and he's about there campaigning with with El said, he's going to his events and he has Piker is from everything I can determine, is a raving and semi. Just look at what he said. And I've said this before, but he and I somebody ain't gonna be in this party after in a while. I don't know who it is, but the long term prognosis of me and Hasson Piker ever being in the same tent politically is about nil. That's a pretty easy I got to think about Waved right now. His guy wanted Michigan. He did. Now Carvill says he is backing that guy in Michigan. I'l said in spite of the criticism of L sayed, and especially when compared to the Republican in the race, he says, now it's because he hates Mike Rogers so much he's got to vote for L. Sayed, So there is room in the Democrat Party, I guess l sayed responded to Carville's comments, saying, part of me is like, why does anybody still listen to James Carville? He said one smart thing once which he seems to have forgotten, which is it's the economy stupid. Carville has alleged that the progressive left wing of the Democrat Party is too hot headed to know that they are not popular. Yeah, they don't have to be popular everywhere. They have to be popular in enough places to cause problems. That's how you incite the revolution, right, you target certain places, you win power, you break that place, and then the problems heads. Right, what's happening in New York City is not going to leave us all unaffected. At some point, whatever happens up there, it's going to spread out and it's going to motivate people, galvanize them, and the revolutionaries will use it as an example to further the revolution. It's kind of what they do. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like Please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.