Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Premature Congratulations and Big Picture Ramifications

By the time I shut down the computers for the night last night, Andrew Gillum had conceded the Florida Governor's race to Ron DeSantis.  Governor DeSantis had a thin margin of victory, on the order of 45,000 votes, but it was expected to be a tight election.

In the senate race, celebrations from this morning are looking premature this evening.  I recall seeing a statement that Bill Nelson had conceded the senate election to Rick Scott overnight, but most reports this evening say he refused to concede.  The Internet doesn't forget (although it can certainly hide things), but the story is at the Orlando Sentinel.
By tonight, the margin is 0.32%, 26,056 votes in Scott's favor.  State law triggers a recount when the difference is less than 0.5%, and Nelson has requested one, which indicates he has not conceded.  Welcome to Hanging Chad 2.0.  They say we'll know by noon Saturday.

Most of the races went as I voted, although some of the amendments did not.  I'll explain two in particular that passed and I voted against.  First is No. 9, which both bans offshore oil and gas drilling and Vaping in enclosed workplaces.  First, I don't see the sense in lumping these together - they have nothing in common.  Second, I think banning vaping should be left up to the businesses running those workplaces and the state shouldn't be involved.  Third and most importantly, I'm in favor of offshore oil and gas drilling.  Heck, I'm in favor of leasing part of my backyard for fracking.

The other amendment that passed which I opposed bans dog racing.  Sorry, I love dogs (nowadays, just other peoples' dogs) but I don't see anything wrong with it.  Yeah, I've been to dog racing, but not since I turned 18 or whatever it was that made it legal for dad to take me.  Lets say I haven't been to a dog track in 45 years.  Another area I don't see the government needing to be involved in.

The bigger picture I believe I see in the country is one I think I first wrote about back in 2011, that divide we all talk about, the one we call "red state vs. blue state" is really big cities vs. more rural areas.  It can be seen in a map of how Florida voted in the 2012 and 2016 presidential races, from a paper called Your Observer.

There are minor differences between them in the counties - a couple of blue counties went red in 2016 - but the big cities are in the three counties on the southeast coast (Palm Beach, Broward and Dade in north to south order), Tampa in the county numbered "4" on the west coast, and then Orlando and its suburbs in the area marked 7 and 8 in 2016.  The area numbered 1, which I believe represents the highest percent votes for the Democrat is Alachua county, home of the University of Florida.  The counties numbered 3 and 5 are close to the state capital of Tallahassee and home to Florida State University.  No wonder they vote for big government.  (There are big state universities in Tampa and Orlando as well, and big private universities in SE Florida).

This isn't a new phenomenon and I'm certainly not the first to comment on it, but I think it's getting worse.  A new complication comes from the Democratic Socialists of America (no link; you have a search engine if you care).  It's one thing that Occasional Cortex talks openly about getting rid of the electoral college (I've done a couple of posts about that movement this year); just as dumb, the DSA and some of its minions are talking about getting rid of the Senate.  The main argument is that the senate isn't fair because each state gets the same number of senators (I'm not making this up).  To paraphrase Senator Diane Feinstein (D - Uranus) "why should Wyoming’s 500,000 residents have equal have status with California’s 36 million?"  There is no mention that other side of the capitol building houses a body where representatives are proportioned by population.  It's a rather elegant way to try ensure big cities don't rule everything in the country.  But having a few big cities control all those icky deplorables is what the Democratic party wants.

But, hey!  The CATO Institute ranks Florida as the #1 Most Free state in the country.  Details here.



The data only covers through 2016 and we've been #1 since 2014.  Before that, going back to 2000 we were in the top 10 every year except one, and only made #1 in 2014 on Rick Scott's watch.  I can't say it was all his work.  It is, though, easy to break things and from what I know of Gillum's policies, we would have been knocked down to the bottom tiers. 

EDIT 2255 EST 11/07:  Thanks to commenter Aesop for pointing out I barfed the first name of Diane Feinstein calling her "Babs".  Short Attention Span. 


16 comments:

  1. the electoral college and the two per state allotment of senators is the only thing standing between the dregs of a representative republic and out right Communism. Look at the effects on the States, after Reynolds vs Simms. The cities effectively rule the States-

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  2. Aesop:

    I'm thinking you meant to reference Dianne Fineswine, accidentally conflating her with the former Senate junior retard from Califrutopia.
    Sen. Barbara Boxtard (D-Bronx) retired in CA so that Kamala Harris (D-Symbionese Liberation Army) could take over the seat.


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    1. D'oh! What can I say but thanks?

      A mind is a terrible thing...

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    2. ...to baste. Wasn't that the accurate ending to that quote, after both Michael's and Richard's excellent adventures?

      }:-]

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    3. You lost me there, Mark. The only reference I can come up with is "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure", but I never saw that.

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    4. Michael Jackson hair fire:
      https://tinyurl.com/ycnfx63x

      Richard Pryor burned free-basing:
      https://tinyurl.com/y8cm35wh

      That slogan made the rounds for a while, but it has since been scrubbed from the Internet:

      https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061022134138AADb9K7

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    5. Gotcha. I almost went there because I started using that line before the Jackson and Pryor incidents. I figured in today's SJW world that joke about the Ignited NCF would get the death penalty.

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  3. One of my former bosses describes Alachua County as a plantation, with UF being the Master's House. Seriously. Go outside the city limits and you'll find some real red-staters, but the pustule of the core of the City of Gainesville rules everything.

    To tell you how bad it is, GRU (Gainesville Regional Utilities) used to be the highest bond-rated public utility in the nation. Now? They have plans (???) to go full 'renewable' in the future.

    We're screwed here. Pray for us.

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    1. I have a passing acquaintance with the area, from interviewing UF long ago as a place to transfer to out of JuCo (and I didn't go there). It seemed almost the definition of "college town" in that there was virtually nothing there that wasn't the school or its life support network. This was the mid '70s.

      The Master's House on the plantation sounds like an apt comparison.


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  4. A recount? Expect the demonrats to magically find several boxes of "uncounted ballots" to insure they win said recount. NOBODY cheats as well
    A commie looking for power.

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    1. The latest is that three elections have gone into recount and missing boxes of ballots have already started showing up.

      In addition to Scott/Nelson and DeSantis/Gillum, the third race is agriculture commissioner, Matt Caldwell vs. Nikki "pot for everyone" Fried.

      The lesson is that GOP candidates have to win by more than the margin of fraud. If recounts start, they will recount until the Dem wins.

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    2. Surely you understand by now that it simply is not possible to "win by more than the margin of fraud". They merely wait until all the OTHER votes are counted, and then "find" however many they need to meet their goal. There have already been several elections where the vote totals in a number of precincts are higher than the number of people of voting age in those precincts. And neither "Law Enforcement" nor the "Legal" system will do a damn thing about it. If there was any honor in this state's "Law Enforcement" or its "Legal" system, all the ballots in Broward county would already be impounded. Especially since their Supervisor of Elections has previously been convicted of violating election law by destroying ballots. Any bets on whether THAT has happened???

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    3. Do I have to go "reductio ad absurdum"?

      If a GOP guy won by 60% to 40% would they do a recount? What if the GOP won 70/30 or 80/20 or 90/10? Without the recount, the "cover and concealment" to generate massive fraud doesn't exist. Do you agree that there's a margin beyond which they can't pull of the fraud? If they had to double the population in voters, not "more than 100% of the eligible voters" but twice as many?

      I'll fully agree nobody is ever going to win by 70/30 statewide, but there were elections won by more than 60/40 in Brevard. The state law mandates a recount if it's within .5%. I think if these races were 52/48 none of this would be happening.

      We're getting to the point where big, corrupt, Democrat-run counties like Broward, Palm Beach and Dade are thinking they have the right to dictate the every office in the entire government - like we're seeing about on the national stage, with NYFC, El Lay, and a few others saying they ought to set every national policy and office.

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    4. We are not in a "recount" at this time. We are still in the INITIAL count. FOUR DAYS after the election was allegedly over. And do note that Orange and Duvall and Pasco and Pinellas can be every bit as corrupt as Dade and Broward and Palm Beach. And to the best of my knowledge, we still do not have a count of the "total" votes cast in either Broward or Palm Beach. And good luck getting to 60-40 when:

      1. Your own GOP senator refuses to endorse you.

      2. ABCNNBCBS and their dead-tree fellow travelers provide free campaign ads for your opponent while damning you with enthusiasm.

      3. The big money donors in your party refuse to support your campaign.

      4. The hives total roughly 50% of the state's population.

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  5. Ocala, FL mayor won office after something like 15% of eligible voters turned out. I wonder how low that percentage has to go before voters go whaaa?

    Only thing Americans seem willing to disobey over is gun registration or confiscation. If Gilliam says he is governor people will obey him. What policy option is infinitesimally to the right of gun registration? Domain for disobedience to ramp up seems to be very small.

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    1. It's an interesting question, that hangs on another question: "at what point of low turnout is an election invalid?" I don't think I've ever heard of precedent for that. Does that mean an election is valid if 1% of the eligible voters turn out? I honestly don't know.

      I'd rather see people who are clueless about the issues and candidates not vote. Just like I don't want opinions of what sort of gun I can own from people who know nothing about guns, history and the second amendment, I don't want opinions on real important questions from people who don't know who their incumbent elected officials are.

      Yeah, I know. Racist. Antiquated outdated opinions. Whatevs.

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