Comments by Steven P. Rader | Eastern NC Now

It is very simple, Stan. In a county-wide limited voting election, it is hard to get traction running an issue-based campaign. Candidates win with far less than a majority of anything, and they can run on things like what zip code they are from. A district campaign is less costly and therefore it is easier to recruit candidates. All candidates are from the same zip code anyway, so that is not a something any candidate can use as a crutch The school board primaries this year are a good example of how candidates feet can be held to the fire on issues in a district race.

An at-large system with full voting rights also enhances how much issues play, but not as much as a district plan. Limited voting is the worst of the lot.

Commented: Wednesday, June 15th, 2022 @ 6:58 am By: Steven P. Rader

Stan, District races are friendly to candidates who do what they say and are strong on the issues. They are unfriendly to those project one thing on the campaign trail and do another in office. You would have no problem getting reelected under a district plan unless you got gerrymandered into a Democrat district. The same is true of Hood Richardson.

The election system that is the friend of the political chameleon is limited voting, which is why we have the type of majority we have had under that system. The lack of accountability that exists under that system is what creates the lack of responsiveness to the voters.

Commented: Tuesday, June 14th, 2022 @ 5:27 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Even though the preclearance requirements with the US DOJ are gone, having been ruled unconstitutional, Beaufort County is still subject to someone filing a motion in the old David Moore lawsuit, so we have to be very careful about the impact on minority voters. This limits our options but either a district plan or an all at-large plan are viable within certain parameters.

A district plan will need at least one majority minority district to be viable. It should have two but demographics have changed to the point that it is no longer possible to construct such a district in the eastern end of the county by jumping the river, as it had been in years past. In fact the only such district feasible is in the Washington area with 7 districts. With 6 districts, it would be highly problematic there.

Under an at-large plan, the more seats running in the same grouping gives minorities better mathematic odds. With seven seats and voters having seven votes, all would need to run at the same time and in the same group. Splitting these in any way would be seen as diluting the minority vote.

I like the idea of letting the voters rather than the politicians choose the commission chairman, especially if the chairman is a full time job, negating the need for a county manager. Buncombe County had such a system in the 1970s with conservative Republican Curt Ratcliff as full time county commission chairman until he left to run for Congress. the county never had a tax increase under his leadership. An elected official drawing up proposed budgets is always going to be more responsive and accountable to the citizens than an unelected bureaucrat.

As a practical matter, carving out a separate seat for the county commission chairman would mean having to raise the number of commissioners to nine, which may not go over so well. In an at-large plan, it would reduce the number of seats in the grouping to 6, therefore reducing mathematically the chances of election of minorities. With a district plan it would reduce the number of districts to 6 in a 7 member commission, making it problematical to draw a majority minority district.

Personally I could go with a district plan or an at-large plan. With an at-large plan, we could also restore the two year terms for commissioners that Beaufort County had for many many years until the backroom deal that gave us limited voting. Two years terms are much better for responsiveness and accountability, and what justification is there for four year terms for commissioners when US Congress, State Senate, and State House all serve two year terms?

Commented: Friday, June 10th, 2022 @ 7:55 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Countrygirl, what you suggest is a lot like the old system, where there were five districts , each township being a district, and candidates had to live in the district but all voters in the county voted on each district race. They all ran at the same time and had 2 year terms, which makes for a more responsive set of politicians. Unfortunately, the courts have held such systems racially discriminatory, so we are blocked from going back to that.

Limited voting is the same system the Red Chinese proposed for Hong Kong in their negotiations to end British colonial rule, but the British rejected as totally undemocratic. US courts have ruled that limited voting cannot be imposed on a local government by court order because it is such a questionably democratic system. The only way a local government can get stuck with it is by agreement to settle a lawsuit. We can thank our former all Democrat board of commissioners for getting stuck with it here, because they were the ones who proposed it, to try to save chairman Frank Bonner from having to run in a majority black district. David Moore proposed a district plan, and the GOP would have almost certainly won two of the districts he drew and had a shot at two more.

So what are out options now? There are really two of them, a district plan and an all at-large plan, with all commissioners running at the same time in the latter. Dividing an all at-large system into two groups elected at different times is discriminatory as it reduces to odds of electing minority candidates.

If the numbers were different here, I like the plan that Buncombe County used to use. They designated one seat as the chairman and candidates ran for that seat to be the chairman, so that the chairmanship was decided by the voters instead of the politiicians. The chairman's seat was a full time job and he also served as county manager, so there was no one powerful bureaucrat in the system. Conservative Republican Curt Ratcliff held the commission chairman's seat under that system for many years and the county never had a tax increase under it. Unfortunately, doing that in Beaufort County would set the numbers for six seats that would prohibit a minority-majority district, and that would probably be considered discriminatory. To have a separate chairman's seat would probably require increasing the number of commissioners to nine. I really like that system but I do not know that having nine commissioners would fly with the voters.

Because of David Moore's lawsuit, and the Democrat commissioners' foolish settlement of it, we have to be particularly careful of impacts on minorities. If the Democrat commissioners had not hired a surrender monkey for an attorney, whose goal was always negotiating the surrender instead of fighting the case, we had a really good chance of winning it in court.

Commented: Saturday, June 4th, 2022 @ 7:58 am By: Steven P. Rader

The 3rd District Republican Party has sent out a legislative alert asking Republican activists to contact their legislators to oppose SB149, the Obamacare Medicaid expansion bill. A legislative day of action for party leaders to go to Raleigh to fight this liberal bill is being organized.

Conservatives should contact Republican legislators to communicate their opposition to this bill. In our district, Keith Kidwell is solidly in opposition to the Medicaid expansion but Jim Perry in the Senate is heavily funded by Big Medicine and he needs to hear that Republican voters oppose this bill.

The main number at the General Assembly to contact any legislator is 919-733-4111

Area legislators to call include Steve Tyson (Craven), Bob Steinberg (Senate - Chowan), Jim Perry (Senate), Bobby Hannig (House - Currituck), Michael Lazzara (Senate- Onslow)

Senator Norm Sanderson and Representative Keith Kidwell both prominently mentioned opposition to Medicaid expansion in their campaign advertising for the primaries this year.

Commented: Tuesday, May 31st, 2022 @ 7:31 pm By: Steven P. Rader

As to crossover votes in NC, those can only come from Unaffiliated voters, NOT from voters registered in another political party. We are not like Wyoming.

Allowing Unaffiliated voters to vote in Republican primary came about by act of the state Republican executive committee, not by the legislature. There had been a federal court case in another state ruling that parties could make the decision on who could vote in their primaries, and then state GOP Chairman Jack Hawke suggested opening the Republican primary to Unaffiliated voters to make them more comfortable voting Republican in the Fall. I was one of the Executive Committee members who voted for it. The Democrats later opened their own primary to Unaffiliated voters.

There are presently a number of grassroots Republican activists urging that primaries be closed again. This has been spurred on by several instances of Democrats switching to Republican to run for office and then organizing a campaign to get other Democrats to switch to Unaffiliated to vote for them in Republican primaries. That has been regarded as dirty pool, even though none of them have won a GOP nomination that way so far. On the other hand, state party leadership has worked to prevent the issue even coming before the executive committee, fearing a backlash from Republican-oriented Unaffiliateds.

Contrary to some opinions, most Unaffiliated voters are not ticket splitters. If you calculate Republican and Democrat base votes and then the swing vote (ticket splitters), the largest group of Unaffiliated voters actual voting behavior is straight Republican. The swing vote is often the smallest component.

Commented: Monday, May 9th, 2022 @ 5:01 pm By: Steven P. Rader

The idea that a Republican sheriff candidate or his supporters would recruit a substantial Democrat to run for sheriff does not make much sense in my view. Both GOP sheriff candidates think they will win the primary, so why would they or their supporters want a more competitive Democrat in the race for them to have to run against in the Fall? That simply defies logic.

Commented: Tuesday, May 3rd, 2022 @ 6:24 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Fixing 2020? NC overcame the Democrat cheating in our state, carrying for key conservatives and Republicans including President Trump in spite of Democrat shananigans. Some of the things the Democrats did here have needed to be fixed so we do not have that risk again in future elections. Apparently you have not been following Rep. Kidwell's high level of attention to this issue. He has become the point man in the legislature on election integrity issues. Indeed when a local election official discovered modems in their voting machines which were not supposed to be there, it was Rep. Kidwell she called and he blew the whistle on it, exposing the presence of modems in voting machines in several other counties.

As long as Cooper can sustain vetoes, we are not going to get legislation approved that will be as strong as we really need, but a veto proof majority in 2022 will open up the possibilities of much stronger action to clean up some of the shady election practices. I am sure Rep. Kidwell will be right there to take advantage of that opportunity to strengthen our election laws.

Oh, and I encourage Rep. Kidwell to seek a leadership position. Conservatives are not well represented in the General Assembly leadership at present.

Commented: Tuesday, April 26th, 2022 @ 11:11 am By: Steven P. Rader

April Wood and Donna Stroud are solid conservative strict constructionist judges and deserve our votes. They have proven conservative records.

Commented: Saturday, April 16th, 2022 @ 12:20 pm By: Steven P. Rader

The immediate cause of Yanukovych fleeing the country was that there was a vote scheduled in Parliament on his impeachment and removal from office the following day. Yanukovych knew he would lose it, and so rather than facing it like a man, he bailed out and fled to Russia. Impeachment proceedings are an integral part of democracy, not a "coup" or "revolution". He also probably knew that his hardball crackdown on the protesters would likely lead to his indictment. Most of Ukraine's gold reserves left the country about the same time Yanukovych did and haven't been seen since.

As to the violence, that was caused by Yanukovych setting his riot police to viciously attack the protesters. What Trudeau did to the truckers was child's play in comparison. Unlike the truckers, some of the protesters fought back hard, and although most casualties were among protesters, some were among the riot police as well. The worst part was the snipers Yanukovych placed on building who fired into the protesters. The snipers were thought to be from the Russian military but whether serving soldiers or retired is unknown.

Commented: Saturday, February 26th, 2022 @ 2:32 pm By: Steven P. Rader

I am appalled. Putin's side is posted on the BO, and like all propaganda it is total BS. "Armstrong Economics" seems to be Putin trolls.

What happened in 2014? A pro-Russian president of Ukraine conducted a rigged election (you know, sorta like 2020 in the US, but worse). The result was ultimately tossed out by Ukrainian courts (as US courts SHOULD have done in 2020) and his side lost the new election. The peaceful demonstrations against the pro-Russian president were dubbed the "Orange Revolution" and the violence the pro-Russian president used against them outdid what Trudeau did against the truckers. It included putting snipers on buildings and shooting people. Those were the corpses from that situation that were referred to. The pro-Russian defeated president ultimately fled to Russia.

Donetsk and Luhansk? Portions of those regions are run by a breakaway Russian puppet regimes manned by Russian mercenaries. and yes there has been fighting from time to time between them and government forces.

If these Russian trolls want to see one sided propaganda, they should watch those government-controlled Russian TV stations. After Russia's last aggression, when they captured the Ukrainian territory of Crimea and set up their puppet regimes in Donetsk and Luhansk, it was well justified to take their propaganda off the Ukrainian airwaves.

"Armstrong Economics" are clearly in Putin's pocket and they are spewing Putin propaganda..

Commented: Saturday, February 26th, 2022 @ 9:01 am By: Steven P. Rader

Recent bye-elections (special elections for vacant seats) for state parliamentary seats in the Australian state of New South Wales are a huge warning sign to the big parties, especially the coalition. There were four vacancies, 3 previously held by the Liberals and one by the National Party. The National Party retained its seat, but so far only one of the Liberals has. One former Liberal seat that had never been held by any other party in its history, was lost. In another which has been considered one of the safest seats in Australia where Liberals usually win by over 20 points has the Liberal candidate narrowly clinging to a slim lead over an Independent with votes still to be counted. This should be a wake up call to the big parties, especially Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Commented: Wednesday, February 16th, 2022 @ 1:46 pm By: Steven P. Rader

It looks like the pushback against Covid tyranny may well roil Australia's election this year. Both major political forces are tainted with heavy handed Covid restrictions, which may open the way for Australia's smaller parties, especially given the election procedures down under. Smaller parties have historically done reasonably well in Senate races but less so in House races.

Australians do not just vote for their first choice, but also second, third, fourth, etc. At each counting, the lowest candidate is eliminated and their votes reallocated by the next preference of each voter. Smaller parties make alliances to shift their votes to other small parties and their voters usually honor those. The first small party to really thrive under this procedure several decades ago was the now mostly defunct Democratic Labour Party, a conservative working class party.

The main political forces in Australia are the Labour Party on the left and the conservative coalition on the right consisting of the National Party that runs mostly in rural areas and the Liberal Party (they use "liberal" in the traditional sense of small government and lower taxes) which runs in other parts of the country. All three of these parties are heavily tainted with Covid tyranny, as is the main small party of the left, the Green Party.

Small parties have done best in senate races, where all senators from a state run together in a multi-seat race, as opposed to the single member constituencies in the House.

Currently, the two most viable small parties of the right are the anti-immigration One Nation Party, which won four Senate seats in the last election, and the social conservative Family First Party, which has been consistent over the long haul of winning one to two Senate seats every election. There are a number of other small conservative and libertarian parties which offer candidates.

Then there are the small parties organized around the personality of someone who has initially won office as an independent, all of whom are relatively conservative. One that showed the potential here was independent Senator Nick Xenophon of South Australia, who was originally elected on a platform of ending video gambling, but after accomplishing that changed his focus to fighting against wind and solar energy. With his new platform, Xenophon's newly formed party won four of South Australia's federal Senate seats. When Xenophon changed his focus from federal elections to state elections, however, his renamed South Australia - Best Party imploded, largely because they backed off of their signature issue of fighting wind and solar. There are now three incumbent independent House or Senate members who have personality based parties that run around the country. All of them are relatively conservative and could see a breakout this election.

The small parties include a number that are harder to categorize like the Motoring Enthusiasts Party, which won a senate seat a couple of elections back and the Sex Party that almost won a senate seat last election.

The major parties are seeing significant parts of their base discontented with the country's hard line in favor of Covid restrictions, and those voters could easily move to smaller parties. For example, the Labour Party has heavily depended on Labour unions for election support, but many rank and file union members are strongly opposed to the Covid restrictions. In one incident, when the union leadership backed a Labour-run state government's vaccine requirements, thousands of disgruntled union members stormed their own union headquarters, and after police prevented them from sacking it, the next day they blocked major roads to protest the police protecting the union bosses. It is hard to imagine these union workers being very enthused about voting Labour this time or listening to the union bosses about who to vote for. By the same token, many base voters of the coalition are unhappy with the heavy handed Covid measures of Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Given this pushback, it is likely that House as well as Senate seats will be in play with the smaller parties this election.

Commented: Monday, February 14th, 2022 @ 10:28 am By: Steven P. Rader

That McCrory letter also tries to position himself as a fighter against illegal immigration, but his record as governor shows exactly the opposite. One of McCrory's early acts as governor was to collude with AG Roy Cooper to circumvent state law and give NC drivers licenses to DACA illegal aliens. Pat McCrory is the big amigo of the illegals, just like his buddy Thom Tillis.

Commented: Friday, February 4th, 2022 @ 5:05 pm By: Steven P. Rader

The deputy leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Candice Bergen, has a masterful takedown in parliament of blackface Prime Minister in hiding Justin Trudeau on calling the Truckers for Freedom "racist". It can be warched here: www.thegatewaypundit.com

Commented: Wednesday, February 2nd, 2022 @ 10:28 am By: Steven P. Rader

Trudeau sounds a lot like former Romanian dictator Ceaceascu in fleeing his capital, but that did not work out so well for Ceuceascu.

Commented: Sunday, January 30th, 2022 @ 10:33 am By: Steven P. Rader

The new Rasmussen poll that just came out gives the GOP a 9 point lead on the generic ballot for Congress, a generic Republican versus a generic Democrat.
www.rasmussenreports.com

Commented: Tuesday, January 18th, 2022 @ 5:24 pm By: Steven P. Rader