The LuLac Edition #5, 201, November 13th, 2024

 

13 QUESTIONS

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1. Well, what are your thoughts on the election?

I essentially said the same thing last week that we are short sighted country. If we had lived during the World War II era and had this attitude where our own conveniences were primary and the state of our country, and our democracy were secondary, we would now most likely be speaking, German or Japanese. That is not an unfair comparison. Anybody who knows history would be able to see the parallels between Germany in the 1930s and the United States of America in the mid-20s.

2. What do you think of the fact that the Trump message was better than the Harris message?

I think that the message was based on lies and promises. There was a lot of stuff that he said that he just can’t control. I mean, he said that he was going to make sure the prices were going to be lower and that’s not going to be the case because again there is supply and demand and it’s also large companies that are raising the prices on goods but giving us smaller packaging. But how he’s going to try to enforce that is anybody’s guess.  On the other hand, the Harris message was based on the fact that I don’t think that she highlighted the successes of the Biden administration.  She didn’t fully, come out forcefully and explain the negatives of deporting millions who are holding jobs no one wants.  The big mistake in this campaign was not necessarily the candidate but the way that they hired brain dead PR people who told the campaign that they didn’t have to worry about the sex change ads that the Republicans were throwing against them. Both sides messaging was different, what happened with the Trump message was that it resonated with the gut and well in true democratic fashion the Democratic message with more cerebral then the Republican was. Voters this year, wanted to vote not necessarily with their mind, but with their gut.

3. you use the term in grace all the time in describing voters do you think that’s fair?

Well, as Jimmy Carter once said that life is not fair, but I guess you can make an argument that that is a little strong. I based that word on the fact, though that there are people in this country that are doing better than they ever were before were members who essentially are collecting a pension because they had unions that were supported by Democrats through the years. They have healthcare because the Democratic administrations gave them an opportunity to get it.  Before that no one passed the healthcare bill ever in this country. Then there are on Social Security people who are on fixed income seniors.  I do not understand how any senior who is an fixed-income would actually vote for somebody where they are essentially going to try to cut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. So, I guess the term ingrates comes from the fact that

1.  People don’t remember where they came from.

2.  They are very shortsighted and darn right selfish and

3.  They basically care more about their basic needs at this point and trading that for a cogent plan that will be helping people collectively not individually.

4.  Did it surprise you that Cartwright lost his bid to get another term?

I really thought that he was going to try to pull it through but what happened again was you had people who attacked him and ads that were totally ridiculous. One of the ads was that he turned his back on the police when in fact, he actually got millions and millions of dollars for local police.  That goes to show the people are ignorant of how government works and what a congressman does for them. My analogy I gave to somebody was that you might have a volunteer fire company in your little community, and they think that the firetrucks which cost nearly millions of dollars in some instances just come out of nowhere or from their spaghetti suppers that they have. Cartwright has done a lot for volunteer fire companies but again people don’t realize that because they have no nuances of how government works. Here’s what happened with this.  We traded the third ranking member on the Appropriations committee, remember, Dan flood Dan Flood was on the appropriations committee, he shared the appropriations committee, and we got a lot of things in this area that we would never have had without him. In Paul Kanjorski’s terms congressman he obtained money for the flood wall, and also the downtown Riverside Park that you see on the Fourth of July and during  Rodkin’  The River,  But people forget about that and so we are going to be having a rookie in there who is going to in effect, not have the clout or power in the first 2 years. So essentially, we traded a veteran person who cared about the community with another person who the GOP backed to the hilt.  I think that people will not realize that this is a big loss. .

5. Do you think the Bob Casey will find more votes to overtake Dave McCormick?

That is going to be a big hill for Casey to climb.  Remember he was the only Pennsylvania senator to serve three terms consecutively. He is going to have to get provisional votes as well as other votes to come close.  Whoever wins this race it’s going to be by a whisker.  My gut tells me that it is unfortunately not going to be Bob Casey , but rather McCormick.

6. Did you vote by mail, or did you vote in person?

By mail

7. What was the biggest disappointment that you felt when you saw the election results come in and essentially made loser in county a red county?

The hard work of the volunteers in this area who went above and beyond in terms of canvassing.  The Dems also brought people into this area like the Vice President, Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz,  his wife and surrogates from all over the place.  The disappointment is that they really had no impact.  The ground game here was incredible and the sense that volunteers from all over the country were bussed in to make sure that every voter was contacted was pretty much an exercise in futility.

8. The blue wall was supposed to protect the Democratic candidate. What happened?

 

In talking to my friends in Wisconsin and North Carolina, I was under the impression that early voting was going to favor the Democrats.  But it favored the Republicans.  It was a kitchen table issue of economics and a country where people forgot that there was a short supply of goods during and after the Pandemic.  I don’t think people remember customers storming Walmart and Target for toilet paper.  Again, voters have short memories, and that wall basically didn’t protect the Dems because of the economics. But I do have to tell you that all the candidates went to those states ad nauseam  It seemed like a case of people were thinking short term and not long-term

 

9. What do you say to those people who say that Kamala Harris was the wrong candidate?

 

I tend to think that she was the right candidate at the wrong time. She did everything that was asked of her in terms of explaining some of her policies and also letting people know what she was going to do.  That $25,000 buyout for people who were going to be first time homeowners I could tell you scared the crap out of my Republican friends, who basically essentially don’t want anybody else to get ahead of them. The other thing that was holding her back I feel was her office itself. It’s very difficult for a vice president to succeed A President. Even a person like Joe Biden, whose heart was in the right place. But people never really got a chance to take a look at some of the stuff that he did because I don’t think they understood it , don’t think she promoted it. There have only been two people who have gone to the Presidency after being a sitting vice president and that was George HW Bush.  Bush 41 in 1988 and then it was Martin Van Buren in 1836.  I don’t think you should blame the candidates. What I’m hearing is that the Democratic Party again is in disarray and all of the billions of dollars that she was supposedly spending made  the campaign go  into the red.  I don’t see how that could happen when you raise billions of dollars.

 

10. Did you lose any friends over this election?

 

Not friends, but a relative or two.

 

11. Do you think had Harris picked Josh Shapiro for vice president that things might have been different?

 

I have two areas of thought on this.  When I was interviewed by WBRE in the summertime by Giana Galli we talked about the fact that if she did not picture picking Shapiro. I said Harris might take someone like Tim Wallz like I had suggested.  We both agreed that would be a defining factor and we both laughed and said that well, we’ll find out the day after election to see if Walz was the better pic or if she should’ve picked Shapiro. But I think at some point and I’m not speaking for the man that Shapiro might’ve been relieved that he wasn’t picked. Had he been because selected people might’ve blamed him for the trouncing that the Democrats got.  I think that he is going to be considered one of the front runners for 2028, but it is totally ridiculous to even think about that right now after the 2024 election.

 

12. I saw you guys on TV on WBRE live streaming how did that come about?

 

It was an experiment by WBRE to see what reaction people would have to it and from what I understand, he streaming really went well. They had that sense of a lot of people watching it. Remember WBRE serves 22 counties. I have to tell you though after the show the participants Dr. David Sosar me and GOP county chairman Gene Zaremba were sure this was going to be a onetime thing. We were going back-and-forth with each other with Mark Hiller and at times it got a little heated. But at 11:10 at night the news Director came in and thought we did a tremendous job.  Now I don’t necessarily agree with that because I’m very self-critical, especially after a three hour effort like that, but I’ll take the compliment most definitely.

 

13. Do you think the Luzerne County election Bureau did a good job this year?

 

Absolutely I thought that they handled the problems that came along, and they solved them. There was a bomb threat, and they made sure that everybody got out of the building and back in the building.  They got the returns out in a timely manner, but of course there were a couple of people that anytime there’s little mistakes, they throw their temper, tantrums. And suddenly scream corruption.  Isn’t it funny that this particular election wasn’t stolen because they won it but God forbid (and this is probably the only thing that is good about the Harris loss) if she had won there would have been a riot caused by entitled MAGA babies who emulate their political god. Even now MAGAs across the state have filed more than 20 challenges to ballots IN A STATE THEY WON!!