Not sure the best thread for this, but the quote was too good not to share.

From a campaign adviser to one of Herschel's primary opponents, describing the Walker campaign

“Herschel was like a plane crash into a train wreck that rolled into a dumpster fire. And an orphanage. Then an animal shelter. You kind of had to watch it squinting through one eye between your fingers,”

An article in the AJC describes some of the dysfunction within the campaign. Among the key points was the high level of involvement of Walker's wife who, two anonymous insiders allege, was obsessed with winning a majority of the black vote despite pretty much everyone telling her that was an impossibility. She also had complete control of the candidate's social media.

Who was the brave speechwriter who helped him weigh in on the vampire v werewolf debate?

SI

Or the scientist who helped with the good air/bad air theory?

And despite it all the vote was close. How is that even possible? :banghead:

Racist cowardly white people

It's the new R party, it matters not the slightest bit of who it is, just that they will vote to own libs and nothing else. The fact that we got 48+ of the vote is insane. He did not live in GA, he would probably be the dumbest senator in history (or at least top 10), he fathered children he abandoned, paid for abortions, and abused women. Yet all these old white christian folk voted for him because the pastor wants men to play women's collegiate sports.

Normally I don't comment too much on a lot of these issues but.. You think it's just white Christians that care about the bold? I think a lot of folks, me having a daughter and granddaughters too, being one, think it comes down to fairness to the girls. I don't intend to go back and forth about it but, in my mind that is the issue. I can feel for the trans folks affected and also think that "fix" isn't right without being Christian or transphobic (is that the right term?).

Other than that I agree with everything you said. As for me? In this race, even though I don't agree on biological males playing with the females, I would vote for Warnock. It's folks that vote on only one issue, that are the problem (lots of Christians for sure). The far right is much worse than the far left, ie they have no problem destroying democracy to seize power. Something I never thought possible in this country. Maybe I was naive? Thankfully in this just completed election it appears the middle was scared more by the far right than the far left. I hope it stays that way but am not confident it will. Many times it was thought Hitler was done and would never gain power. How'd that work out?

I for one used to vote for the candidate I thought was the best for the job. I now, and for the last few years, vote straight (D) until, or if, the (R's) come back to reality. Even if that happens it's going to be a tough sell for them to get me to consider anyone they run. The only exception would be someone that stood up when needed, like a Chaney or Kinzinger. Anyone that enabled any of the bullshit that has gone on is politically dead. Any new blood the R's bring into the ring will be met with extreme skepticism and stands almost no chance with me either. You reap what you sow.

I have great respect for Chaney and Kinzinger, but at the same time they still vote and think the same way as most of the other R's on most of these issues, so I'm not sure there's any going back for me.

Yeah, I'd definitely take into account the policies they were supporting before voting for them. However they were the only two I could think of that have stood up against the bullshit. That at least earns them a look. There may be more but, none from my home state of Iowa :eek: Grassley could have stood up with all of his time in government but... no. :( :embarrassed:

I'm well aware my votes pretty much don't count. I also see folks I grew up with going totally off the deep end and telling me the what is really going on because they read it "somewhere". It's unbelievable but, there it is. :banghead:

You have to give them credit, either they're gonna win on their terms or they're going to give it all they got in defeat...

Ethics Commission To Affirm Mississippi Legislature Not A ‘Public Body’

Look, I sat the race out (both rounds) since I don't believe either should be anywhere near D.C. except maybe as a tourist.

But as for close, but for Fulton and (or) DeKalb County Walker would have won going away. The vote gap is 97,000 (out of 3.5 million votes).

There were 77 counties* that were 70% (or more) for Walker.
There were just 6 counties that were 70% (or more) for Warnock.
The Warnock edge in just DeKalb and Fulton alone? 394,000 votes.

*out of 159 counties, for some perspective

There are roughly 35 counties with under 10K people, so who really cares how many Warnock won. Land doesn't vote.

I was more addressing the issue of how it could be close. People only familiar with one part of the state often have problems comprehending that any other part of the state exists (or how incredibly different those parts are).

The geographic issue relates to how the old familiar adage about "two Georgias" (a familiar refrain for decades) is very much alive & well, perhaps more than ever.

Yeah, there is definitely two Georgia's, though the more urban part has been bleeding further out of the metro for the last few years.

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In the end, Georgia is still a red state. It is just not a Trump state. Governor Kemp is likely to become Senator Kemp in four years. He will beat Ossoff unless there is a major scandal in the next four years. There wasn't a Democrat that won a single state wide office this term except for Warnock.

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And you go back to the two Georgias (which is really three) there yet again really. Outside the counties touching the ITPs it is very much a Trump state. (Enough so that I worry DeSantis would have trouble winning the next primary if that's the choice)

And being a Kemp state just means that it's quite purple in some areas. Do not count me among those the least bit confused about those who voted the Kemp/Warnock combo.

I've sat out the last two governor's races and now two Senate races. Kemp still wins for now because there are a lot of people who are willing to vote for pseudocons just to vote against a (D)

cuervo has the answer. The party/platform is all that matters for most voters. Not all voters, so particularly bad candidates still swing elections, and meh ones in close elections, but for the most of the electorate integrity is irrelevant, fitness for office is irrelevant, being somebody you could talk to for five minutes without wanting to punch you in the face is irrelevant.

We go around in the circle about this every once in a while on this forum. People will laud Amash/Cheney/whoever for 'doing the right thing' and 'I don't understand why more Republicans don't'. This of course is why. They are doing what their voters want. There is nothing remotely close to electability if you aren't virulently against 'the other side', whatever that may happen to mean at the moment. We (royal we as a nation/electorate) do not really want candidates who will do the right thing. Comparatively we couldn't care less about that. If we want a government of people who will put integrity over party, then we have to vote that way, which means supporting those who vote against bills we want passed or for bills that we don't want passed if they are also statesmen of principle.

I think you are right about Kemp.

It's a Trump state in a primary, not a Trump state in a general. Kind of the same issue in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Still think if Republicans had nominated someone who could string a sentence together and wasn't handpicked by Trump, they'd have that Senate seat.

It's a purple state now regardless. The shift in some of those suburbs is pretty dramatic. Gwinnett went from Romney +9 in 2012 to Warnock +24. It's slowly turning into Virginia.

The difference in Cheney and a Trump Republican is the latter says the quiet part out loud. Cheney cares about "decorum" and being invited to the next cocktail party.

A significant reason that I have very little notion that I'll still be here by the next election

Trumps major announcement is really something else...

Oh my goodness Trump’s “major announcement” is even more pathetic than I anticipated pic.twitter.com/5IzjklP7Fo

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 15, 2022

At least make them stickers that you could put on your bumper to own the liberals!

JonInMiddleFLA? ;)

Da fuq?

I guess after they realized The Boys was making fun of them they decided they needed their own super hero merch

Good news in the Michigan kidnapping case. Three of them going away for years and years.

Today is the first day I'm no longer convinced Trump will actually run. I know he hates losing and maybe he's going to take his ball and go home instead.

I don't know who had "creates NFT trading cards of himself in heroic roles" in the office pool, but that person is a genius.

Even if he runs and support among Republicans is down to 2% (at the rate he's been clowning himself since the 2020 election, he might get there), he'll still win the primary because every Democrat in the country will cross the aisle to vote for him.

I've never thought he'd make it to the primary. I'm more interested in how he backs out and who he tries to take down with him when he does.

Doesn't look good for the "No, no, no, NFTs aren't just for money laundering" crowd today

SI

Will did go to law school in Miami . . . :-)

He who wants to launder a bunch of money for someone?

MiddleFLA is Orlando though, right? Doesn't strike me as Jon's type of place.

Middle Florida might be some place like Lakeland. It’s basically impossible to fly into, yet my Mom stays there in the winter. Like pick your poison, Orlando or Tampa

Or Ocala, where the sweet tea line sits and basically divides the rest of Florida from "southern GA."

I went to undergrad in Lakeland but I haven't been back in at least 25 years. The one good thing about it is that it's pretty much in between Orlando and Tampa area, off I-4.

Trump NFT Collection Sells Out, Price Surges

So this is the point where Trump dumps the NFTs he "bought" himself in order to rake in extra cash right?

It will be interesting, down the road, to see how much actual involvement Trump had with the NFT or if some upstart crypto bro already had it laid out and pitched it to him as low effort, quick cash for his NIL. It is almost certainly going to be manipulated now, but by Trump or by someone like SBF will be fun to watch unfold.

It's actually pretty impressive. Getting involved with NFTs is one of a vanishingly few remaining ways to make Trump's negative impact on society even more comprehensive than it already was.

Just what the world needs - a second bored ape NFT.

I'll certainly line up to buy something that is really nothing!

He must be so happy. He put pictures of himself up for sale, and demand was high.

That’s pure Trump catnip.

More likely SouthFL, or thereabouts.


Funny you mention that (Ocala, not the sweet tea part). My wife had pretty much decided by, I dunno, 2020 or so I guess that if Will truly intended to stay down there then we were Florida bound as soon as it was practical (remember, her mother is here in GA now). And the, let's call 'em 55+ communities cause "senior living communities" sounds waaaay older, had a pretty strong appeal to her.

Will wasn't a fan of the location because "hell, that's almost too far away from Miami to even count as moving here, c'mon closer"


Yep, you nailed it square on. I still have some reservations about being too close because I'm a really strong proponent of the "give your kids room to make their own lives" approach but he has certainly made it clear that he wants me to move down there since he has every intention of staying.

My bare minimum threshold for separation has been "okay, I absolutely do not want us shopping the same Publix" but as I've gotten more familiar with the areas that make up "Miami" I'll admit that keeping 1-2 Publix apart while still being in "Miami" isn't really that hard to accomplish.

IF this house I'm in now was already cleared out & sold, etc. I'll admit that I found a place that I REALLY thought I might like. It's all of two blocks from his current condo which led to this conversation:

Him: "So does that mean you've eased on on having different Publix?"
Me: "No, it means you'll obviously have to move"
:)

I think it is wonderful that you have this great relationship with him, Jon.

I hope to keep that up with my boys when they become men.

I also think that you can live pretty close to him but still give him his space. Even if you are a five minute drive away, it isn't like you'll be over at his house every day like a sitcom side character. But, when you do want to go watch a game or whatever, it's a short drive.

I am truly blessed in that regard.

Couldn't agree more with the bolded part. Being close to him is what you make of it. Unannounced visits, etc...would make it tough. I live 5 minutes from my wifes parents and it is great because they can easily pop over to let the dog out, get kids off the bus, etc....and likewise I can do stuff for them. We share an Acme and rarely see each other there.

It's just something that I'm REALLY paranoid about.

Just about every good, fun, enjoyable, worthwhile, profitable, beneficial, meaningful (okay, you get the idea I guess) thing that happened to me AND/OR my wife was directly related to our intentional choice to get far enough away from "home" and find our own way(s) of creating a life. And I don't even mean just the years together, I mean in the years prior to ever meeting each other.

You wanna talk about something I absolutely could not live with nor forgive myself for, it'd be interfering with his opportunity to do the same. It'll all work out, we'll figure it out in a way that works for us, but I'm likely to always try to err on the side of caution about it as you can probably tell.

And my apology to anyone who might be annoyed by the sidebar this kinda turned into. Honestly, I was a couple posts in before I even thought about what thread it was in. Any derailment was unintentional.

I wonder if it's different with girls. Neither of my girls wanted to go too far away. Caitlin even transferred to a SB program closer to home for the final 2 years. Mackenzie is at EKU, 45 minutes away, and comes home nearly every weekend.

My mom says that we gave them much too good a life growing up and if we had done it right, they'd not want to come back so much.

I couldn't wait to go away, but I only went 3.5 hours away - far enough that I only came home 3-4 times a semester, but not so far that I would have to fly home. My wife, OTOH, lived at home during college. Part of that was the economic reality for her parents (she worked a full-time job while going to school), but part of it was that she wanted to stay. And her parents have now moved near us, leaving Florida for Kentucky. I tend to think a decent part of the disparity between me and her and the kids is that they're female.

I think maybe for both me & my wife, it was more a function of "where is X,Y,and Z that I want" and that happened to be a couple area codes away from where we grew up.

The advantage to that sort of distance played out for both of us in the freedom to figure out what sort of life we (individually) wanted to have, without being nudged (or dragged) into/away from wherever that figuring-it-out process took out. We made our share of mistakes, took our share of lumps, but both considered that just part of the learning process. And we were both more comfortable learning without feeling like we were under observation.

In Will's case, it isn't so much that I worry about directly interfering but rather about being an interruption in the flow as he checks on me, makes sure I leave the house often enough, etc etc etc. That just feels like MY responsibility, not one he should be even tempted to do much of. God knows, circumstances have put a ton of responsibility on his shoulders at too young an age, last thing I can handle is adding even more to that.

My M-I-L lives close to us (and to her other daughter).

On balance, it has been great for things like "run over and let the dog out"

And having our kids growing up knowing their grandma has been wonderful.

I think that you would need to take it on yourself to find things to do--hobbies, etc. that get you out of the house.

I could see a problem if you moved there and said "Now, entertain me."

But you are clearly very aware of that as a potential problem. So you can, IMO, be pretty close as a matter of geography as long as you were also doing your part to build a life independent of him (WWII book clubs with other old dudes and shit like that :-))

All that said, if moving 45 minutes away instead of 15 gives you a sense of space that you want, then roll with that, too.