It's (also predictably) a contest to see who can be the most Trumpy.

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that describes at least 80% of all GOP primaries

check out the wyoming congressional GOP primary debate highlights: [www.youtube.com]

…or the Nebraska state GOP convention:

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Republicans were sharply divided during this spring's gubernatorial primary battle between two conservative candidates: the eventual winner, Jim Pillen, and businessman Charles Herbster, who was endorsed by Trump. The race to replace Gov. Pete Ricketts, who couldn't run because of term limits, became more controversial after eight young women accused Herbster of groping them.

Sounds like Trump’s kind of guy.

Herbster lost the primary, but

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Herbster has refused to endorse Pillen

Yup. That’s definitely Trump’s kind of guy.

And after Herbster lost, in a fit of pique, the Trumpies

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…fired the longtime [GOP] party chairman at a tumultuous state convention that highlighted divisions within the party driven by activists who support former President Donald Trump and want to take the party further to the right.

After convention delegates voted to remove Chairman Dan Welch on Saturday, most of the other state party leaders, including Executive Director Taylor Gage, resigned…

The GOP is sooooooo f’ed up right now, it’s just frankly pitiful. I can’t believe anyone can vote for them.

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pdq
The GOP is sooooooo f’ed up right now, it’s just frankly pitiful. I can’t believe anyone can vote for them.

Agreed. "But Democrats are the only reason we have inflation now."

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…and the Trumpiest one won:

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Tudor Dixon, a conservative media personality with the political backing of Michigan’s powerful DeVos family, won the state’s Republican primary for governor on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.

Conservatives are always going on about “Hollyweird”. Thing is, Dems almost never put forward “media personalities” as candidates.

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Ms. Dixon emerged victorious from a five-person field that lost its two best-funded candidates in May after they were disqualified by a state canvassing board for turning in forged petition signatures.

They were no doubt big supporters of “election integrity”.



Another was

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…Ryan Kelley, a real estate broker, was arrested in June and charged with four misdemeanors for his actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

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Of the four leading candidates, three — Ms. Dixon, Mr. Kelley and Mr. Soldano — falsely said during the May debate that Mr. Trump had carried Michigan in 2020. Mr. Rinke said that there had been fraud, but that he could not be certain it was enough to flip the state to Mr. Trump.

He couldn’t be sure, y’know?

And what about the big weiner winner?

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A former commentator for the conservative media channel “Real America’s Voice,” Ms. Dixon, 45, was previously an actress and an executive at her family’s steel company.

With that background, being a governor should be a shitshow easy.

Gawd, if Witmer loses to this clown…

And Missourians won’t have Eric Greitans to kick around any more:

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Eric Schmitt, the Missouri attorney general, easily captured the Republican nomination for an open Senate seat on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. His decisive victory derailed the political comeback of former Gov. Eric Greitens, whose campaign had been clouded by allegations of domestic abuse, infidelity and corruption.

…If Mr. Greitens had won, Democrats planned to attack him on a record that included allegations from his former wife that he had physically abused her and one of their young sons, as well as accusations of sexual abuse from a hairdresser who said that he had lured her to his home, tied her up, torn off her clothes, photographed her partly naked, threatened to release the pictures if she talked and coerced her into performing oral sex.

Well, he was former governor of the “Show me” state…

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Mounting a campaign saturated in violent imagery, Mr. Greitens ran advertising featuring military-style assaults against “RINOs” — Republicans in name only — and shots of himself, a former Navy SEAL, firing high-powered weaponry.

So who was endorsed by Trump? Well, that’s unclear:

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Mr. Trump called Mr. Greitens “tough” and “smart” in an interview on the pro-Trump network One America News, and his son Donald Trump Jr. shot automatic rifles with Mr. Greitens at a shooting range and said on camera that they were “striking fear in the hearts of liberals everywhere.”

But when it came to the actual endorsement?

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…former President Donald J. Trump…unable to make up his mind, endorsed “Eric” on Monday without specifying which one.

No doubt he’ll put this one in his “win” column.

And in Kansas, a shocker (to me). The names and euphemisms involved in this constitutional ballot question are extra-obfuscatory. But bottom line, should the Kansas Constitution continue to protect women’s reproductive rights as presently written in said document…or strip such protections and let the heavily Republican legislature decide (almost certainly to ban abortion). So, “No” means leave things as is, “yes” means ban abortion.

Guess what?

With ~70% of the vote in, “No” is winning nearly 2 to 1.

I did not expect that.

Edit- extra amazing, considering the dirty tricks:

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Democrats were infuriated by the text message they [all] received Monday, which inaccurately said that “voting YES on the amendment will give women a choice.” A yes vote would actually end the right to terminate a pregnancy in Kansas and give the Legislature the authority to pass a total ban on abortion. A no vote would preserve the status quo, in which abortion is heavily regulated and legal through 22 weeks of gestation.

“This is as dirty as you can get,” said Davis Hammet, a voting rights advocate, in a tweet. “The anti-abortion coalition is sending out a last minute mass text to Kansas pro-choice voters blatantly lying about the abortion amendment so they vote the wrong way.”

WaPo got on the case:

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The newspaper traced the unsolicited text messages to a political tech firm called Alliance Forge and identified [Republican former congressman Tim] Huelskamp’s Do Right PAC as the client behind the campaign.

You might think this would land him in hot water.

But you’d be wrong:

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State officials said the use of voter registration data to deliberately mislead voters doesn’t violate state law because [in Kansas] lying is allowed in election advertisements, and unsolicited text messages about ballot questions don’t require senders to reveal their identities.

Welcome to Kansas!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2022 09:22PM by pdq.

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pdq
And what about the big weiner winner?

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A former commentator for the conservative media channel “Real America’s Voice,” Ms. Dixon, 45, was previously an actress and an executive at her family’s steel company.

With that background, being a governor should be a shitshow easy.

Gawd, if Witmer loses to this clown…

The DeVos family backed Tudor Dixon and apparently dumped a shitton of money into her campaign*. But it seemed to be a fairly close race until Drumpf endorsed Dixon.

* DeVos' backing alone is enough for me to vote against a candidate.

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And in AZ, the wingnuts go for another nutty Trumpie ex-talking head for governor.

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Nearly as soon as she left her Phoenix TV station in the spring of 2021, Ms. Lake began repeatedly proclaiming that Mr. Trump, who endorsed her that fall, had been cheated out of a second term in office. After spending 25 years in local television, she attacked the news media as corrupt.

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Ms. Lake will face Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, in the general election.

Nice gubernatorial pickup opportunity for the Dems, unless the voters in AZ actually prefer another Trump lapdog with no other qualifications. Maybe the latter can get the Cyber Ninjas band back together.

Lake will have a tough row to hoe if she continues her latest schtick: Proclaiming there was election fraud but not offering evidence, and when pressed to produce evidence, her response is "we're not going to give it to the fake media." (not going to give that non-existent evidence to anyone else either)

Alrighty then.

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