I got nothing.
Here's Joe Manchik, the Green Party candidate who will probably make sure that #OH12 goes to an R who doesn't believe in science instead of a D who does.
He believes his ancestors come from a different planet.
(No, I'm not kidding.)pic.twitter.com/rFPOuoemKH
— Holly Figueroa O'Reilly ? BWCS (@AynRandPaulRyan) August 8, 2018
hells littlest angel
For what it’s worth, I believe his ancestors came from a different planet too. Probably Uranus.
MattF
There seems to be lots of stuff he doesn’t remember. I guess the aliens race he was born into decided to cut his human-training short, since it wasn’t working.
MattF
Comment editing isn’t working.
The Midnight Lurker
@hells littlest angel: HAHAHA! That old joke still works on me!
raven
Why do you think they call it dope?
Mark
I don’t like the Green Party
But your still allowed to be a slapdick
In this country
Gozer
Wow…
NotMax
He met the qualifications to run. Can’t fault him for that. Rather those who voted for him can be looked at askance (but I for one am chary of lambasting anyone for actually getting off his or her butt and voting).
Also too, there’s no way to truly know how his votes would have broken had he not been on the ballot, or if those voters would have showed up at all.
Gozer
@raven: I was thinking the same thing.
Pro-tip: Don’t blaze that OG Kush before an interview. *insert The More You Know rainbow here*
MattF
@NotMax: I agree with you. If the mainstream parties couldn’t persuade someone to vote for them rather than this guy…
hells littlest angel
@The Midnight Lurker: Classics stand the test of time.
ruemara
Young me was so naive. I was really serious about them 18 years ago. I left when I saw they weren’t really serious about themselves, but I held out hope. Now I join the Green Party EU and wish the American Green Party a hearty fuck yourself with a rusty chainsaw.
schrodingers_cat
I would look for an R connection.
NonyNony
A few things:
1) Most of the Green voters in OH-12 actually did the right thing. According to Ballotpedia, in 2014 – the last off-year election – the Green candidate got over 9,000 votes. Last night he got around 1,000. Spread across 7 counties. So almost 90% of Green voters moved their votes this year – presumably to the Democrat given the final vote tallies.
2) Of the 1000 Green voters who are left, given the folks who live in my part of the district, many of them likely are nuts for the most part. Larouchies and left-wing conspiracy nutters. The guys who will accost you outside of the grocery store about contrails or how 9/11 was an inside job that the Democrats are covering up. Most of them wouldn’t vote for a Democrat if you had a gun to your head – if Manchick weren’t on the ballot they wouldn’t have shown up at all. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they voted for him BECAUSE he thinks our ancestors came from another planet.
Tim C.
The argument might be that the people who voted for him aren’t any more reachable than any Trump voter. They have a slightly different set of cult-beliefs (Purity is a hell of a narcotic), but at 0.6% that’s down at like the level of Voter Error than anything else.
maya
While we’re debating the cost/benefit ratio of the Greens was the question ever answered: Why was Jill Stein celebrating with Putin and Patriot Flynn at the gala RT dinner? Did she just happen to be in Moscow on a Baedeker walking tour?
dr. bloor
@NotMax: Yeah, taking into account that he pulled a half-percent of the vote, and some of those voters were either making mistakes in the voting booth and/or as crazy as he is, it’s pretty hard to hang the loss on the Greens here.
kindness
Will no one rid me of these turbulent Greens???
For ever I thought the line was troublesome. It wasn’t.
ruemara
@maya: I’m sure it was just a coincidence. I know there’s a dump of communications related to her around on the internet somewhere.
NonyNony
Since comment editing isn’t working for me I’ll add it here – the other thing to keep in mind is that this district is so solidly Republican that many Green voters just vote Green because they know that their vote isn’t going to matter. That’s why I’m happy to see the 8K folks who realized that this year it might moving their vote to the Dems. When it didn’t make a difference they voted Green, but when it could make a difference they voted Dem – I’m just happy they did.
And I hope that they show up in November for when we have a rerun of this race. It’s not often a candidate gets a second chance with some momentum at their back like this year. O’Connor only needs to boost turnout a bit to get over the top. (And if discarded provisional ballots end up being enough to count, the folks who had to vote provisionally will have some time to get whatever issue was wrong this time fixed so they can vote non-provisionally next time – and we don’t usually get opportunities like that either in this state).
kindness
Not saving my comment, eh?
Thoroughly Pizzled
Every conversation I’ve ever had with a Green Party voter devolves into, “DID MY ONE VOTE COST HILLARY/GORE THE ELECTION?” or, “WHY ARE YOU BLAMING ME WHEN [blah blah blah]?” They have no sense of responsibility or basic empathy with others. Politics is simply an excuse for them to behave selfishly.
Chyron HR
Tired: Bernie or Bust
Wired: Anunnaki or Bust
The Dangerman
There will be a do over in a couple months and the Republicans won’t back up the dumptrucks of cash next time for this seat like they did this time.
Wapiti
@maya: I’ll wildly guess that there’s a Russian (or even Soviet) hunkytrap hidden in her past and she wants to keep that hidden.
James E Powell
@NonyNony:
Agree with your #2. As the Captain said, “Some men, you just can’t reach.”
Tim C.
@Thoroughly Pizzled: This. Their vote needs to be a form of perfect personal expression not a calculated move with a defined result. Same thing is about to happen next spring in the UK with Brexit. All those morons who didn’t really mean it, but wanted to “send a message” are going to discover what happens when you do that.
Gravenstone
Nut picking, in real life.
Mike in DC
Third parties just don’t work. They are far more likely to be counterproductive to their own professed aims. If the major party they are trying to pressure concludes it is easier to woo moderates than single issue purity voters then the net effect is to reduce the chances of progressive or other policy changes. Getting the greater evil elected will also trigger resentment and backlash against individual third party voters by major party voters who held their nose and voted for achievable incremental change over wishing for a pony.
Geoff
@MattF: It’s not about the main parties not being able to “persuade” people to vote for them instead of clowns like this. Generally, Green party voters are too selfish, self-important, and self-righteous to ever deign to vote for any main party. They simply cannot be reached.
Mel
@ruemara: Yes, indeed.
How is your citizenship process going? I know it can be stressful, so if you’re at one of those, “Anything but that ! I will think of anything but that today in order to retain my sanity!!” points in the process, just ignore the question.
My former sister-in-law used to plan “sanity days” where she would just have to set aside the paperwork, the document gathering, the phone calls, all the minutiae of the process, etc. for 24 hours in order to keep from getting overwhelmed. It helped, a little to a lot, depending upon what was going on at that particular time.
SiubhanDuinne
Drunk, stoned, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
jl
I have more confidence in this guy that I do in Trump. There, I said it! I won’t take it back. He seems to have more focus and better command of facts.
If he runs for president n 2020!, I’m worried about how Baud 2020! campaign will distinguish itself from the crowd.
Other than that, I need to read up on the US Green Party to find out what happened to it. Might be the fate of all small third parties in a country that has universal first-past-the post system at federal and state level. Impossible to get any hold on power anyplace, so eventually disintegrates into oddballs and fanatics.
I do agree with commenter Mark above. It’s a free country and a lot of odd people and parties can get themselves on ballots in at least a few states. That is a fact that will be with us. Rather than complain about it, better to think of what can be done for the people and party you support.
Or work to change the system. One thing would be to support state laws that will, eventually force electors to follow popular vote, and will eventually make presidential election depend on popular vote, not on electoral college.
Personally, I’d rather the country start adopting some version of proportional representation in leislatures. But seems to me that will have to start from local efforts for local governments, and will be a very long haul, if it ever happens.
schrodingers_cat
@Thoroughly Pizzled: They are the most precious of snowflakes because at least R voters vote for the party that will further their agenda, instead of throwing away their vote.
p.a.
Ever since the Reagan ascendancy I’ve not been surprised by the success of the racist voting population- sadly it’s part of the historic national DNA. But teh just-plain-stoopid is a surprise.
Quaker in a Basement
@schrodingers_cat: Like maybe R recruited, R gathered signatures to get him on the ballot?
I got a shiny 50 cent piece on it.
mattH
@NonyNony: 1) It’s a special election, and while I don’t have time to look it up, I am willing to bet that turnout was much lower than the 2014 general election, so I’m not sure it’s a 90% shift to the Democrats.
2) May very well be, but it still doesn’t mean we can’t “name n shame”. If it depresses their numbers later, good for us.
3) Absolutely right. The gerrymandered district was absolutely a hard get for the Democrats. The fact that it was so close is good news over all. Still, it’s always hard not to hope they all go our way and means we have to work hard and keep going.
Miss Bianca
@NonyNony:
Ahem! That’s *chemtrails* to you there, bud! //
Roger Moore
@maya:
She was a regular on RT, so it’s no big surprise they invited her to their gala.
MomSense
@maya:
I thought it was a human rights conference but my brain died, along with irony, some time ago. It’s all just too much to keep track of.
hueyplong
@NonyNony: With such a small rump of the Greens voting for this guy, and seeing who he is, I do not have a lot of confidence that the Dems “would have” gotten all those votes in a two-way election.
Events between now and November might be enough to push O’C over the top.
Major Major Major Major
@Chyron HR:
I think it’s more of a Galaxy Brain than a Tired/Wired, with “Nach Hitler, uns!” in the middle.
Paul W.
@NotMax: I agree, I think we’re past the point where anyone actually believes the Green party is anything but a spoiler. People who vote for them wouldn’t have necessarily gone to the Dem candidate, and it isn’t worth criticizing a nutbag with no allegiance to the Dems for not staying off the ballot when it is his right to run.
We made this a tie in an R+14 district, and if the GOP get complacent because they believe Trump that a “red wave” is coming, then even better! The fact of the matter is that this was a single race that was all hands on deck for the GOP just to get this result, and also outspending the Dems by 5x which is just unsustainable when there are 70-90 seats in play. Let’s count our wins and move on, the Green party will always be with us.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
No, but that’s some classic Porterville thinkin’ there; third parties in the US always try to start at the top, usually running some wack for President and don’t start off with lowly offices like school board and city council to prove their bona fides.
MomSense
@Miss Bianca:
HAARP rings!!1!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: It was obviously an employee appreciation dinner.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Well, the question(s) I have are: did he get all the required sigs and docs on his own? Or did he have “help” from Rethugs, similar to whoever-it-was whose supporter (or campaign workers?) just forged sigs of the recently-deceased on papers, with the goal of siphoning votes from the opponent?
And, of course, did the denizens of his “home planet” send him messages that he should run? Or did a “friend” named “Bryler Tanderson” suggest it to him?
Ten years ago, I would have said to myself “What are you, fucking nuts?” But given the multi-tiered fuckery we’ve seen coming from the Rethugs in recent years …
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geoff:
That can also be applied to glibertarians. In each case, they never want to take electoral responsibility for how they vote. Assholes all.
ruemara
@Mel: I just have to get headshots. Which is funny, because I just did headshots for a friend and I could’ve DONE IT THEN. So it’s my own fault. I have the form done, the check (thanks all!), the ID… so I need to resolve that need this weekend and then mail it. I don’t want to it digitally. Like Shrodinger’s Cat has recommended, I want that cert mail.
I have no empathy or sympathy for Green voters. Selfish and stupid is no way to live.
The Midnight Lurker
Oh my God… has anyone told this guy yet that Space Force ain’t happening’?
HeleninEire
@raven: Dude. How’s Lil Bit?
Mnemosyne
@NonyNony:
Yeah, this. And if only 0.5 percent of your local voters are on board with space aliens running things, that seems like a workable percentage, all things considered.
It’s still kind of fun to show this to people who just reflexively voted Green to be sanctimonious and watch their faces drop, though. ?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@mattH:
Yes, this. It’s amazing to see how the media and even Trump is crowing how a 12 pt shift to blue is fantastic news for the GOP.
Roger Moore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
That’s because a lot of the third parties have been created top down. They’re either vanity projects for the ultra-rich (e.g. the Reform Party and H. Ross Perot) or grifting opportunities for their leaders (e.g. the Libertarian and Green Parties). I guess a few have also been foreign front groups (e.g. CPUSA), but again the goal is still publicity rather than a serious attempt at government.
Mnemosyne
@MattF:
I’m pretty sure that anyone who voted for this guy was not going to be persuaded by any actual real-world policy proposals.
Miss Bianca
@MomSense: Oh, great! You’ve just triggered a flashback! OMG, some of the buggier-than-batshit patrons at the library who wanted my help with their “research”! AAAAGGHH…!
PS, querulous cry to the universe: Has anyone found the way to get Safari to auto-fill the nym/email features again?
jacy
@Geoff:
I always want to smack the people who say, “But what have the Democrats done to earn my vote???” Well, if they’re too stupid to figure out how to vote in their own self-interest, they’re more interested in ego-gratification than anything else. They would rather be special than smart.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne:
You bad animal. Have you been doing that? : )
Mike in NC
Front page of USA Today : Trump isn’t Putin’s lackey, it’s actually the other way around, according to his moronic followers. The Kool-Ade is delicious, too!
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
G has nicknames for some of his regulars (assuming he doesn’t already know their names because they insisted on telling him). Chillers Woman is a classic one — she started off asking about chillers for HVAC and being angry the public library didn’t have a specific book about them. It was all downhill from there.
HeleninEire
@Thoroughly Pizzled: LOL. You talk to those people? I walk away. I used to talk to “republicans” and “Trump voters” but no more. Its like when people say “Don’t talk about politics or religion.” I used to talk about politics but have never talked about religion because I so don’t believe in any religion. I don’t give a shit what they say. Its like someone saying “Hey let’s talk about Leprechauns”
Elizabelle
@ruemara: Will you have an immigration attorney take a quick look see at it before submitting it? Might be helpful, in event he/she notices anything that’s getting red-flagged (legitimately or not). Plus, you’ll have that person to check in with if you get more requests for information once it’s in process. Could be money really well spent.
(The immigration officers are frequently very risk averse, and attorneys pick up on what crazy — and often not legal — guidance they seem to be following.)
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I’m just using my imagination. Anyone who does it needs to film it, tho.
Aleta
Someone needs to send Manchik a friend request from the constellation Taurus and explain his new mission: to vote for the Democrat.
Martin
@Mike in NC: Trump doesn’t play 3-dimensional or 11-dimensional chess, he plays Klein bottle chess!
NotMax
@Aleta
Messages from Taurus are bull.
It’s the ones from Canis Major that are … Sirius.
:)
Mnemosyne
Actual conversation in the commissary that just took place next to me:
Guy #1: “This is just another example of why capitalism doesn’t work for everything.”
Guy #2: “Sorry, what? I was thinking about toast.”
Guy #3: “Sourdough toast is my favorite.”
I may need to try the Toast Redirection the next time a Trumper starts spinning off into their fantasy world.
(Yes, the guy who was talking about capitalism knew it was an attempt at redirecting the conversation. Since he wasn’t a crazy person, he just grinned and went along with the Toast Redirection.)
The Moar You Know
Pretty important to keep in mind that people who vote Green never have and would never have voted Dem, so it’s not like they take votes away from Dems.
They get off on seeing themselves as an oppressed minority, much like evangelicals.
chris
In other news… Jesus Christ, America!
MomSense
@Miss Bianca:
They can cause a tornado right over your house – to silence you!!1!!
NotMax
@The Moar You Know
With the extremely, extremely rare exception.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: Booooooo!!!1
tobie
@The Moar You Know: I agree with your take on Green voters. It matches my experience of them. The question for me is why the Green Party would agree to have a kook like Manchik as their candidate in an election. They didn’t have to front a candidate. This choice says a lot about them.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Shit. I just have no fucking patience left for these shitbags. They can’t win. They know they can’t win. And they shoot down the people who can win who are the most likely to vote the way they say they would like, to the benefit of people who fuck us all over. Why the fuck do people vote for these assholes? Shit. If they really want Republicans, why don’t they just fucking vote for them and get it over with? I hate these fucking people. At least Trump voters are forthright about what they’re doing. Fuck.
sambolini
@MattF: And yet the blame game begins.
Roger Moore
@chris:
This is the Trump/Miller immigration policy in a nutshell. They desperately want to avoid letting (brown) foreigners give birth while they’re here because their kids will get birthright citizenship. Seeing that a woman actually did have a child while she was here is going to make them really angry.
The Moar You Know
Everyone: just google “green party funded by republicans” and sit back and get educated. The GOP is funding them at every race, every level. Some of them claim to be unaware, but…they aren’t.
raven
@HeleninEire: I just got CBD oil in the mail so we’ll see if that helps the cough. Otherwise she’s bouncin off the walls cuz the boss lady just got in from Asheville and is feeding her!
Shell
@raven: Damn, Im gonna have to see if my sister can bring her Zooey over. I need a dog-fix, BAD!
NonyNony
@mattH:
Actually I should have included that – if you look at the numbers on Ballotpedia for 2014, there were 221K votes cast in 2018. According to the NYT page for the OH-12 special election, there were over 202K votes cast in the special election.
That’s only about 20K votes, which is amazing – the turnout for this special election was almost the same as the turnout for the 2014 regular election. And not all of the ballots have been counted yet – there are still the outstanding absentee ballots and whatever handful of provisional ballots manage to survive the provisional process. Sure, that number could include all of the Green voters but I doubt it – there was very likely a substantial shift of Green voters to a candidate who could actually maybe win the district.
And those turnout numbers should have GOP strategists quaking about the upcoming midterms. A special election with a little over 90% of the turnout of the last non-presidential general election? And in that last election the incumbent Republican won 68% of the vote. Balderson faced nearly the same number of voters voting and he is sitting at 50.2% of the vote. That doesn’t bode well for districts where the Republican won it by smaller margins last time…
CliosFanBoy
while I agree the Greenie did not sway the election, it does show the quality of candidate the Greens can recruit.
Another lurker
@hells littlest angel: “That old joke? They changed the name quite a while ago. Planet is now called Urectum.” (Stolen from Professor Hubert Farnsworth, PhD. Futureama.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: You make a good point. I will never forgive and never forget that, believe me, Mr. Simi Valley boy scout.
TaMara (HFG)
@NotMax: I’m in total agreement with you on this. I’m not convinced they would have showed up to vote except to make some weird point for the weird candidate. Or maybe, just maybe, he has that many friends/relatives (it was like just over 1000, right?).
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Good point. I have another grudge to hold against you.
But, this guy has a better chance at in statehouse or federal level.
People might vote for him for governor or Congress, but would never put him charge of the local dog pound or sewer system.
Melusine
It won’t be the Uranian making sure the Dems lose – it will be the heads-up-their-anuses who vote for him.
I don’t normally have an issue with 3rd party candidates. Sometimes their popularity can push a reluctant candidate/incumbent to adopt a different stance. And I believe in voting for the candidate who will do the job best.
And for high-level posts, or at critical turning points, that sbould be the main criteria. Nader was not statesman material. Bernie was happy to throw women and minorities under the bus, and refused to disclose his taxes. Shitgibbon’s only usefulness is as a particularly odorifous firelighter. To paraphrase Will Durst, the presidency should not be an ENTRY-LEVEL position. The fact that millions of people made it one is horrifying and depressing.
In normal times, in lower-stakes races, a qualified outsider may be better for the job. But when you have extremists in power, or on the verge of taking power, you need people who know what tbey’re doing and how to navigate the existing power structures.
If our democracy is going to survive we need accountability. Impeachment, trials, and any other process we can use to hold the treasonous bastards responsible for their crimes.
Anyone wbo throws away their vote is voting for Shitgibbon and his cronies, and is aiding and abetting treason.
Never forget. Never forgive.
mattH
@NonyNony: Thank you for digging that up. It’s much better than I thought and does bode well for the upcoming midterms. So glad to be wrong.
rikyrah
@Roger Moore:
She was a regular on RT??
rikyrah
@SFAW:
Remember, the GREEN PARTY Candidate for Senator in Montana was a Republican. Thank goodness he got kicked off the ballot.
rikyrah
@ruemara:
Make sure that you have copies.
I would have 2 backup copies.
CCL
From the emails I am getting from the O’Connor campaign, the counting isn’t over and the gap seems to be slightly narrowing.
Ohio Mom
@SFAW: You ask good questions, and they are the same questions I have about a perennial Democratic candidate for Ohio’s second district.
This is my district: it starts in the eastern side of the city of Cincinnati and snakes eastward next to the Ohio River for six or so counties — very rural counties.
Somewhere in one of those counties is a fellow named William “Butch” Smith. He’s a retired truck driver who lives with his mother and just about never leaves his house; reporters and Democratic Party leaders often find him just sitting out in front, friendly and ready to chat.
He always manages to get in name in the Democratic primary. He never campaigns but he has such a typical name that he automatically has plenty of name recognition.
This year for a change, he lost the primary. Credit a Blue wave for that. But in prior years he beat out some good Democratic candidates in the primary, and then lost resoundingly in the general.
It’s pretty clear that there are Republicans voting for him in the primary to make sure we have a nothingburger of a candidate. But no one is able to pin his actual getting on the ballot on a Republican effort.
This story, plus Mr. Green from another planet in the 12th makes me wonder how many other Potemkin candidates our guys are fighting.
One district at a time, it looks like a one-off fluke, and since every Congressional seat comes up for election at the same time, a fluke here and there and there gets overlooked.
No, I’m not wearing g aluminum foil on my head, why do you ask?
SFAW
@Ohio Mom:
As I indicated earlier: ten years ago, I might have thought that. But with the tactics the Rethugs have been using for a while, it’s now a matter of trying to figure out the latest/newest way they’ve hit upon to screw with a legitimate election. And if you (the general you, not you Ohio Mom) think “it can’t get any worse,” you’ll be unpleasantly surprised. Doesn’t mean we won’t win in the end; it just means we have to fight them that much harder.
schrodingers_cat
@ruemara: Are you sure you have the correct forms. They had stopped asking for headshots when I submitted my form. They take your picture when they fingerprint you to do a background check. For me that was about 5 weeks after I sent in the application.
Kay
Oh, stop complaining. This is the fun part! It’ll be a good year for Democrats and now that these intro races are out of the way we can start seriously looking at which Republicans must lose :)
Honestly isn’t it sort of easier pick’ins on both coasts? We don’t have to win OH-12. There’s better targets.
Ruckus
@NonyNony:
Lived just outside Columbus for 11 years. There are crazy people in every neck of the woods. That out of the way, it did seem to me that there was a larger percentage of cray cray in the area than in other sections of the country. Or maybe they just stood out more. No, I’m going with more cray cray.
Regnad Kcin
@kindness: “Soylent.” It’s spelled, “soylent.”