Allow me to further expand upon the brief mention from Tuesday of a candidate for a legislative seat in Virginia who was discovered to have an OnlyFans Chaturbate. I might have mistakenly believed that she had won her race for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates.
Her name was Susanna Gibson and whatever material she and her husband produced was widely distributed to certainly Republican voters in District 57 which is near the city of Richmond, VA. It appears to have been a close election between the Democrat Gibson and her Republican opponent David Owen, however, as this report from a local TV station in Virginia the results are17,878 votes to 16,912 favoring Owen as of Wednesday. The District 57 House of Delegates race has since been called for Owen.
So this rather salacious scandal didn't have an overall effect over the Republicans gaining control over the Virginia State Legislature. Owen was smart not to make it an issue himself although the idea here for any candidates is to certainly keep your private life private. Of course find a better way to earn some extra money!
[VIDEO] We had some elections that amateur politicos had kept their eyes on. I didn't exactly watch network TV to follow the results. However once I saw the results for at least two races I've been hearing about it now causes questions about what the GOP is doing right now and what bodes for next year 2024.
In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin rode a bit of a wave to become the first GOP Governor elected since 2013. In fact he defeated a former VA Governor in Terry McAw.....McAuliff and what helped Youngkin's election was anger over Virgina school boards and how they strayed from the expectations of parents towards their children.
Alas on this past Tuesday, Gov. Youngkin who had hoped to secure a majority in the VA Legislature (General Assembly) in both houses only saw Democrats pick up seats in the house and secure a slim majority in the state Senate. So if the Governor wants to pass legislation to address abortion or further address the issues that helped him get elected in 2021 he's going to have a tougher time. And noted by Anthony Brian Logan above a candidate who caused a scandal for an OnlyFans page and not especially mentioned by ABL a transgender candidate was elected to the VA General Assembly.
Virginia is the bible belt, however, the most populous part of the state is in the north, the northern Virginia DC suburbs. The achillies heel of many Republicans trying to get elected in blue states and as it goes the most populous areas of even blue states are the major urban population centers. Here in Illinois that would be the Chicagoland area.
Anyway, in Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear defeated Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Is this a huge surprise? No. Daniel Cameron it was said had no real energy behind him and of course it's always difficult to defeat an incumbent and in the case of Gov. Beshear he's popular so of course the citizens of Kentucky would be happy to re-elect him absent a good reason to change course in the Governor's mansion in Frankfort.
For those of you who may not know who Attorney General Cameron is, he was involved in a decision to not further charge those Louisville, Kentucky police officers who were involved in a raid that shot & killed Breonna Taylor. I can't tell you if that was a factor in him losing this election though I'm sure for those who were following that case that was enough to NOT support Cameron.
And mentioned by ABL and not something I followed completely is abortion measures to the state constitution passing in Ohio. If the idea was to make abortion more of a right in the Buckeye State they had succeeded. I'm sure many celebrated the demise of Roe v. Wade the complications we have seen in 2022 and 2023.
It's a very polarizing issue and it's difficult to really win on it. The dividing lines are strong and it's very difficult to get past the argument of a woman's body therefore her right to choose. I do consider myself pro-life though with reasonable exceptions and I'm a long way from every banning it completely. I just often say life of the mother & rape or incest with in the case of minors parents must be notified. Unfortunately some are not even satisfied with that they might go further and say abortion up until 9 months which borders on infanticide IMO.
Difficult issue, however, the only thing I can say for the political side on this issue is how does a pro-life Republican win in a state (such as Illinois which does have a history of pro-choice Republican governors) where there is solid support for abortion rights. Again that's a very difficult issue though I've laid out a solution which I think is more than reasonable. However, obviously I've never ran a political race so I'm a long way from saying I know the winning message.
So again these are my takeaways on what happened Tuesday. And I almost forgot there was a Republican Presidential Debate on Wednesday and I hear Vivek Ramaswamy just owned that room. That young man had better run for something other than the presidency to keep his name out there!
Well there is some news and who knows if it's credible. California Congressman Kevin McCarthy who is the Republican leader and Speaker presumptive who's shown after three days and 11 votes for a House Speaker that he's not a shoo-in. From Politico:
Kevin McCarthy and his conservative opponents have reached a tentative breakthrough after a days-long standoff, giving the California Republican’s speaker bid a needed momentum boost.
Conservatives say they still need to look over the details of the potential package of concessions, but it’s a sign of life for McCarthy, who has struggled to show public strength after three days of 11 speaker ballots that have seen him fail to flip any of his opponents.
Importantly, while it will get McCarthy closer, it is unlikely the agreement will be enough to get him the votes he needs to win the speakership. Twenty Republicans have been routinely opposing McCarthy on the floor, leaving him more than a dozen votes short of where he needs to be to win the House’s top gavel. McCarthy will need to flip most of those votes without alienating centrists and institutionalists, who worry that he is giving away too much.
The possible deal comes after several hours of negotiations with McCarthy’s detractors and less than a day after the GOP leader made an offer that conceded to basically all of their demands — including making it easier to boot a speaker.
Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz nominated former President Trump on the floor. This is something it seems MAGA supporters want and technically the Speaker of the House doesn't necessarily have to be a sitting member of that body. It was a BOOM moment when it happened. [VIDEO]
Now I'm somewhat aware that there were some issues coming with McCarthy, but who knew that it would take three days to still determine who'll be the next House Speaker. Routinely Hakeem Jeffries the new Democrat leader in the house - minority leader - has been getting more votes than McCarthy to take the gavel. However, a candidate needs 218 a majority of voters to be able to be the House of Representatives presiding officer.
Part of me says McCarthy needs to bow out! Part of me wants to get to the real business of the people! And I recognize this is a consequence of the non-red wave.
