Scott County Republican Agonistes

Scott County Republican Central Committee (SCRCC) candidate for Chairman Chuck Brockmann , a current Vice-Chair of the county party, responded to a letter he directly ascribes to current Chairman and candidate for reelection Jeanita McNulty.  Her letter responded to an invitation sent by Brockmann to SCRCC members inviting them to a meeting identified as a “Chuck Brockmann for Chairman ” event as somehow surreptitious.

We  posted  that letter with our comments earlier in the week. As we pointed out the letter was signed Scott County Republican Party — not under any personal signature but for which we have no doubt was at least authorized by McNulty.  An irony was that the putative letter from McNulty decried Brockmann for implying a meeting was an official act of Scott County Republicans (when it did not) by way of implying her letter was a formally approved action.   More of our comments follow Brockmann’s set forth below:

—– Forwarded Message —–

From: Chuck Brockmann <[email protected]>                                                 Sent: Wed, 26 Feb 2025 22:50:53 -0500 (EST)                                                                     Subject: Chuck Brockmann’s response to Jeanita’s email

Fellow Scott Republicans and Supporters,

Chuck Brockmann here, I’m running for Chairman of the Scott County Republican Central Committee executive board in the upcoming election on March 6th.  I’ve read the email Jeanita sent out today and her information is full of false accusations and slanderous lies.

For those that have not seen this email, I have attached it for you.  I encourage you to read it as it represents the exact political nonsense that my team and I will end after we win the election.  It is a desperate attempt to hang on to political power and I am terribly sorry she chose to send it to you.

At this time, I will only address one thing, my team and I will support and encourage all Central Committee members to remain neutral throughout the primary election process.  After the primary, we encourage everyone to support the winner.  We must unite and defeat the Democrats, and we can only do that together.

If necessary, I will address the rest of her falsehoods.

My team and I look forward to serving all of you on the Scott County Republican Central Committee.

Chuck

Our comments in the previous post were sent to current Chairman McNulty at her G-mail address and to the official G-Mail address of Scott County Republicans.  In those comments we inquired as to on what basis the organization’s bona fides were used — had (her) letter been vetted by at least all members of the Executive Committee. We have received no response to date from her or the “Scott County Republican Party”.

We support Brockmann to be the new Chairman of Scott County Republican Central Committee for his commitment to openness with  committee members and he will  facilitate the ability to contact one another.  McNulty’s insular approach to meetings and proprietary attitude toward committee and delegate membership communication avenues is straight out of participation killing “Control Mongering 101” , which is on the resume of every party incumbent sycophant. It is unbecoming to all members and only aggravates any animosity, helping no one.

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The Circus Continues– Scott County Republican Leadership Election

Veritas readers are aware Scott County Republican affairs are one of our prime interests. We have continued to observe and occasionally report throughout the years but more from the outside looking in. This situation comes to us from  long-time friends and political associates.

The election of the leadership of the Scott County Republican Central Committee (SCRCC) — officers and executive committee is next week — March 6th.  We support Chuck Brockmann and his slate for the positions as they understand the absolute importance of transparency and open communication within the organization if members are to be more than bumps on a log.

It is insulting and untenable that the current Chair Jeanita McNulty has not allowed sharing of contact information between members — we are talking Central Committee members, the essence of a board,  with actual statutory standing. It is outrageous really, and disqualifying in itself. There are other reasons but all of them can be traced to that inability to let loose.  We hope she steps down and reevaluates the situation for other service.

Below the hash marks  is our response to a letter from Scott County Republican’s, the official g-mail account of the organization.  That email decried an invitation to SCRCC members (those Brockman et al could get contact information for) which was never said to be an official meeting of SCRCC members but was offered as a casual way to inform SCRCC members of Brockman’s  candidacy and seek their support.  It is not too much of a leap to infer who sent the denunciation even though it did not appear signed. Hopefully readers will get the gist.

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This is a response through annotation (line by line or paragraph by paragraph) to the desperate communication sent from the address “Scott County Republicans” <[email protected]>” that has come to my attention condemning the Chuck Brockman for Chairman outreach meeting to be held February 27.  The original text from Scott County Republicans” is in bold black italics with v’pac comments/response set forth in red and indented.  All of this is of concern to rank and file Republicans who elect precinct committeemen.

Date: February 26, 2025 at 5:20:39 PM CST  The McNulty et al communication begins:

To: Scott County Republicans <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: NOTICE OF DECEPTIVE PRACTICES

The Subject title NOTICE OF DECEPTIVE PRACTICES chosen by the sender(s) is a poison pen response to what is an entirely appropriate invitation to members of the SCCC to hear from someone running for Scott County Chair. What the heck is wrong with inviting the pertinent electorate to hear from a candidate at a timely physical meeting offering more ample opportunity for Q and A ?  Such an approach is largely necessitated given the constraints (unnecessary or by design in the choice of venue) of the election meeting. Only someone or some group who wants no challenge or competition would respond so pejoratively to a transparent communication process. The poison pen choice of words NOTICE OF DECEPTIVE PRACTICES is calumny with the intent to delegitimize communication between members of the SCRCC. The communication signed “Scott County Republican Party” gets worse and even more revelatory from there. 

Common business practice other than from those with imperial presumptions is to have at least the prime author and or “lead” person responsible for the communication listed. Accordingly, was every SCCC  Exec. Comm member contacted to authorize this communication, and if not, then to say it is from “Scott County Republican Party” is misleading, and in context, imperial to say the least. Who in the current Exec Committee signed off on it and wants to actually put their name to a frantic effort to head off a voluntary campaign (or any informational meeting addressing Republican politics) sent to Republican office holders elected by their precinct caucus attendees? 

So we are left to rebutting “whoever wrote or authorized this letter”. 

In so many ways the response to thwart attendance at a legitimate campaign meeting is a campaign effort in and of itself, using the  auspices of the organization inappropriately and trying to muddy real issues with innuendo. 

One should ask ~~ what are he/she/they (hereinafter “they” “their”) truly scared of — being challenged for office? Imagine that — it is somehow disruptive and sinister to openly call for a meeting to present one’s bonafides.  And no big surprise – an internecine group is intent on subverting internal challenges to maintain their positions.  

Their response letter to a call for a meeting  to discuss the merits  of an identified candidate seeking the Chairmanship of SCCC  is an incredible travesty, an assault on openness, collegiality, while displaying imperial presumptivness and exercising a control fetish — perhaps in furtherance of their own internal partisan paranoia. 

I use “they”‘ measuredly as some Exec Committee members may not be aware of the extent of real problems and would not have signed off on such a letter had they been aware. We would like to know who did support the letter and on what honest basis.

You may have been contacted by telephone or received an “Invitation to Scott County Central Committee – Executive Board Election Planning Meeting- Chuck Brockman for Chairman”.

Having listed the title of the communication they presume people can’t parse the words. the invitation was addressed to an electorate and clearly identified as a “Chuck Brockman for Chairman” event. Only by a fevered partisan imagination does one see that as insufficeintly clear and proper. 

This is NOT from, nor is it endorsed by the Scott County Republican Party Central Committee.  This is an intentional deceptive title to a meeting being held by a small number of people that are not all on the central committee.  They appear to have even reserved their meeting room under a false name.  These people are not to be trusted.  Your contact information may have been facilitated by illicitly acquired confidential committee contact information by the same group. 

The first part of the response paragraph is a (responding in kind)  “not to be trusted” attempt to impute something never said or maintained. No one said the meeting was  endorsed by SCRCC or an official meeting.   An official meeting is usually predicated with “official meeting”. An invitation to  a specific electorate to a campaign meeting was all that was actually set forth. How stupid or un-political do “they” think the SCRCC resipients are? 

The last sentence is the total giveaway of one of the primary problems seen with the existing leadership. “Your contact information may have been facilitated by illicitly acquired confidential committee contact information by the same group”

WHAT?! Think about that. A SCRCC member’s name and contact information is to be kept secret and apparently only the control fetishists are to be able to conveniently contact SCRCC members. Fellow members may not contact other members by e-mail or letter? The truth is that  “they” have inhibited at every turn contact information of delegates and SCRCC members,  to their shame.

Now the information can be garnered laboriously as the positions are covered by statute in the Iowa code.  Submissions are made to either state party, state auditor and or local auditor’s offices after the caucuses because of statutory responsibilities and then from that information more can be assembled.  Bits and pieces from one member or another might be assembled. It should not be necessary to do that to contact other board members.

Any SCRCC member who desires not to be contacted about their position by either constituents who elected them at their precinct caucuses or by collegiate members of the statutory decision making body they belong to, are in the wrong game or are a disgrace to open involved membership in this important body.  Keeping board members from contacting fellow board members is a violation of every precept of parliamentary reliability and organizational comity.

They are presumptively attempting to take over our executive committee to assist in their activities to unseat Governor Reynolds, our US Congresswoman Miller-Meeks as well as anyone who does not agree with them.    

The Kings and Queens of presumptivness say that! Incredible. Where does one begin with this childish immature nonsensical understanding of the purposes of a political party and internal elections? First of all,  while it is not true that primary election partisanship is consistent among people with concerns about the current leadership, even if it were true,  on what part of God’s green earth is it the job of the current leadership to protect the incumbents (however worthy) against primary challenges or elected precinct committee people interested in overseeing the fair treatment of all candidates?  Mesdames et messieurs please explain yourself as to how you have not exposed your actual game? 

Our seated Nominating Committee has interviewed 14 candidates and selected a full slate of candidates to be voted on during the scheduled  March 6 Central Committee meeting.

The slate is:

Chair           Jeanita McNulty

Vice Chair  Dan Darland

Vice Chair  Sean Bain

Vice Chair  Vince Barrett

Secretary  Logan Kummer

Treasurer  Jim Beran

This slate provides the proven leadership, commitment, experience, and skills necessary to build upon the Scott County Republican Party’s success that we have witnessed over the past two election cycles under the leadership of our existing Executive Committee.

This is entirely a partisan campaign speech using auspices of the organization sent to a list held tightly by them and denied to others. It ought to be actionable. The hypocrisy of condeming open internal commuication in the form of a meeting while using the SCRCC list for their own purposes is astounding.  For the members of this group with such imperial presumptiveness it should be realized that any number of slates can be properly proposed and under Roberts Rules must not be denied when properly advanced from the floor, nor any other nomination from the floor.  Further the report of the Nominations Committee is just that. It does not have a preference as to advancement and are often rejected or modified. What this one represents is the internal partisan choices of a group for the most part intent on withholding transparency and limiting SCRCC committee inputs, and apparently thwarting primary battles regarding incumbents. Wow. Just WOW. They want bumps on a log people.   

DO NOT BE MISLED

The upcoming 2026 midterm election is critical to the second half of President Trump’s administration and is vital to continue historic reform that we are now witnessing. If we do not gain, or worse yet lose seats at the county, state, and federal levels we will lose our freedom and our country.

Exactly, and a vibrant informed active SCRCC would be helpful to that purpose led by transparent people not control freaks intent on protecting something or someone’s position.  

We cannot afford to allow a small group of radicals to destroy our party from the county level up and reverse the win after win that we have enjoyed in Scott County under our current leadership.

I guess we will see how small the concerns are and who the champions of SCRCC prerogatives and involvement are.  Lord knows evey effort has been made by the current decision makers to thwart SCRCC involvement and collegiality.  Everything is held close to the chest by them. 

As regards the statement “If we do not gain, or worse yet lose seats . . . ”  is, shall we say, rather self-serving. The advances in this county in registrations are commendable, but sober people will understand the Democrats have created an aura about themselves that has devastated their ranks. As for concern about “seats” —  we just went through a cycle with no challenger in a legislative district and minimal support in what turned out to be  an astoundingly close race in West Davenport. If the SCRCC can not come up with 5K to support a candidate and not give Dems a free ride, they are dropping the ball.   

In the 2022 cycle SCRCC leadership  failed to field a candidate in Senate District 49 and House District 98. In tough districts underdog candidates are given little help. 

In a special election just weeks ago Scott County precincts seriously underperformed Democrats to the extent that if just those Scott County precincts had produced a relative handful more votes each, Republicans would have carried the day. While marginal party people are not easily turned out for special elections — influencers, ie. party people — can be induced to pass the word and help obtain turnout.  At every internal juncture some members of the current SCRCC leadership inhibited if not thwarted involvement by others to timely contact delegates/ influencers in the relevant precincts.  Awareness and encouragement to not let that race go to chance or Democrat enthusiasm was soft pedaled. A mere 55 or so votes in each Scott County precinct would have carried the day for the entire Senate District. EVERY effort must be made with higher voting propensity people in special races and that was not allowed to be freely done.  

Stay alert – come out on March 6 and support our continued success by casting your vote for the carefully curated slate as proposed by the official Nominating Committee and be cautious when contacted otherwise.

If you have any questions, please call 563-823-5854, or reply to this email.

Carefully curated indeed. There is nothing official about a nominating committee other than it is a report by a group selected by the Chair.  It holds no parliamentary prejudice and is entirely subject to modification, substitution, being ignored.  Well, this is my current non-SCRCC member but long-time former member and current delegate reply — 

Roger Mall

5123 Woodland Ave

Davenport, IA 52807

veritaspac.com

 

 

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AAR: Trump did not win the popular vote, the matter of early vote by mail, and congressional margins

  • What the GOP did particularly right — overwatch of voting processes
  • What “they” did wrong — not playing rope-a-dope and keeping Biden in the race and spending so much time on hectoring about the mechanism of voting instead of inoculating the vote early on

Our General Observations: 

We agree that the GOP election process overwatch nationwide, along with marginal legislative efforts at insuring voting integrity (primarily in red-states), were key to reducing Democrat cheating, en masse anyway. But the other emphasis by the GOP of promoting the idea of voting by mail was against interests of the integrity of the vote and complicated the overwatch. Also, but for “vote by mail/ bank the vote” being such a resource hog, the vote might have been better for Trump and for GOP gains in congress with a relocation of resources to better expand the vote for Trump and in the process demoralize the Dem vote. 

Let us elaborate a bit more: **

We do not want Republicans or independents cheating on a onesy-twosy basis matching Democrats at their game.  At home voting means no photo ID at time of vote, and no overwatch as to coercion-intimidation-falsification or substituted judgment (voting for someone else) and no contemporaneous observed signature. It is absolutely the most insecure way of voting and then at the other end it has to rely on signature verification and lengthier counting periods complicating validation and overwatch. Signature verification is a joke anyway.

The GOP apparat says they won with vote by mail and banking efforts in that regard. Our view is that typical of credit grabbers they just love the paid hustle, whatever it is. Resources spent repetitively hectoring people to vote early by mail cuts into motivational and expansive messaging and availability of funds for early messaging to inoculate the population and grow the GOP base.

People know how to vote, if they are interested they will vote. Voters in the 1960s and 70s voted at as high or higher a rate with a relativly minuscule amount of vote by mail, less voting opportunities in person, less transportation availability and voting largely constricted to one day.
Make people interested. Put patriotism in them, educate them, expose the Democrats as a party, begin in early spring even February promoting party alongside primary election messaging by candidates (which will help those candidates be more consistent in their messaging) .

We also believe it was/is a phony claim to say that “banking the vote” saves money. Id like to see an audit validating that claim. My view is it wastes money assuming people do not know how to vote. Every repetitive sentence used to hector or explain how to vote early by mail is wasted breath that cuts into motivational messaging.

As previously mentioned it cuts into growth messaging and funds to do so. As long as one person in a household holds to voting securely, which means voting in person and holding to the good-government concept of voting no more than a few days before Election Day — that household continues to receive all the stupid hectoring because “bank the vote” — never mind that it is the HOUSEHOLD being hectored.

The intimidating tone goes that if you “bank the vote” “we” won’t “have to” continue to contact you with breathless information on how to vote early by mail. Oh they tried to fine tune it with vote records but the “we see you have not voted” big-brotherism is endemic and the general ads and admonishments continue unabated, — wasted messaging on all but a very few. It is narrow messaging that hits the voted and the high propensity just the same, forgoing actual growth and suppression messaging for messaging about the mechanism and timing of voting. They used guilt as well, insufferably trying to instill guilt for not voting early – now suddenly de rigueur. Door knocking to encourage voting is fine, but giving people the bum’s rush, inculcating vote-by-mail is against good-government interests.

It should be understood that Trump 47 is only a plurality president (albeit he did better than Trump 45) not breaking 50% with Harris being only 1.5% behind him. Why so many who can read the results keep saying Trump “won the popular vote” I do not know. He was the most popular of the various candidates but somewhat more voters preferred someone else.

Arguably key to his strong plurality win is not that Trump was so overall enthralling (he brought unnecessary negatives to the table affecting leaners) but that the Democrats found someone worse than Hillary in the form of Kamala Harris and the utter failure of the Biden-Harris administration on the economy, the border, the culture and foreign policy. The majority of voters in fringe parties might have given the actual popular vote to Harris although thank God and the system Trump would have still won the electoral college and thus the election.

It is frightening that the Dems did as well as they did. Nearly half or more of the country went for a Marxist, more clearly so than ever before, along with so many leftist congressional candidates.

Several of the GOP nomination candidates would have beaten dementia Joe Biden, but Trump in the biggest potential GOP political blunder of the election, helped bring in Kamala and reenergize the Dems and thereby arguably limit coattails in the election.
Agreeing to debate Joe against protocols and thus helping expose Joe and knock him out of the race was stupid, certainly not 4D chess. With Biden the Dems were totally demoralized. Trump should have let sleeping dogs lie and not agreed to Biden’s own stupid bravado. All he had to claim was “protocol” but I guess we could not expect that from the guy who refused to debate his Republican challengers reserving his own debate bravado for a dementia ridden Democrat. It was impulsive for Trump to agree. He should have mustered the discipline to let Dems be saddled with Joe.

With a replacement for Dementia Joe they were able to raise probably $2 billion and kept hope alive . . . they found themselves stuck with Kamala but it was quite possible they could have picked another candidate by perhaps buying Kamala off, like she did with Oprah and Beyonce and “influencers”. That Dems could keep their vote in line as much as they did with Kamala, they could have done so with someone else. Maybe not, maybe so.
But the most secure thing to do for us was run against Joe and also best for the down-ticket races. The Dem’s problem of being saddled with a still really bad replacement candidate was their mistake not Trump’s brilliance. And not having Biden as Trump’s opponent arguably prevented an actual popular win by Trump.

Getting off track a bit as to the messaging battle, the Dems tried to win on abortion which was/is a big part of their problem. Abortion was all they used but it only helped hold a small part of their base, that element was still likely to vote for Harris and Dems anyway. Abortion produced an abortion of a campaign.

Anyway, there should have been no Democrat wins in a CD that went for Trump. As it was there were 12. True, the GOP picked up votes but I believe the failures and distaste for Democrat performance increased GOP trends (a relative concept) more than whether people voted early by mail.

Messaging and now organic distaste for Dem’s suppressed Democrat vote. Good messaging is more important than voting early by mail because good messaging both suppresses the opposition and enhances the GOP across the board. Weakness in the opposition was more important in 2024 than voting early by mail.

So now we have the narrowest of majorities in the Congress. I am grateful we have majorities at all but the situation is dicey, to say the least. I think we would have done better congressionally, long and short term, running aggressively as a party (however Trumpish in tone) against the Dem Party, against anyone connected to the Democrat party for all their egregious failures. Maybe just 3 or 4 CD’s might have followed but we need every bit of such a margin.

So the apparat is crowing and remains big on “early”, perhaps putting a damper on federal efforts at reform. I only accept that “early” is good when it comes to starting and then sustaining inoculating messaging. But this go-around that would have had to begun “early” at a time when the apparat was falling all over themselves saying ~~ we have this now, we will beat them with “early voting by mail” ~~ their mechanism — wasting resources on related stupid messaging ad nauseam.

Voting Republican is what is key, whenever it is done. Voting by mail does not increase the vote. Your opposition having eggregiously bad candidates suppresses their vote and having a better alternative candidate (we had that) and exploiting the difference with messaging is key.

By the way, further marginalizing the situation in Congress, at least temporarily, is Trump raiding some of the incumbent and reelected personnel. To the extent they come from GOP areas still means more money must be spent on those races rather than “banking” that money and using it to sustain the effort of change with supportive messaging and holding GOP incumbents feet to the fire.


*It is certainly arguable but we believe Stein votes would have virtually all gone to Harris or not voted. RFK votes were so calcified his support of Trump so well known, that these diehards would not have voted for Trump or Harris and likely not voted. Same for Oliver — hard core Libertarians had problems with Trump and they are impractical and hidebound. “Other” vote totals and write-ins cannot be predicted.  Source of totals:   https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=2024&off=0&f=0&elect=0

**  This commentary, slightly edited here was also part of a comment to Townhall this day.

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Message to Grassley and Ernst re Senate leadership

Message sent to Senators Grassley and Ernst re Senate Majority Leader candidates to replace Mitch McConnell .

Please support Senator Scott for Senate Majority Leader.  It is crucial to advance the agenda the American people indicated they wanted last week with a Senator in tune with that . Senators Thune or Cornyn are not and should not be put in a position to protect the deep state and business as usual.

https://www.ernst.senate.gov/contact/email-joni

https://www.grassley.senate.gov/contact/questions-and-comments

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A sign for Scott County , the state, and the nation

All three went for Trump.

Maybe G*d hasn’t given up on the USA just yet

This appeared around 430PM on Tuesday November 5th., facing East.  Photo credit to RN.

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Full record of Selzer’s/DMR-Mediacom /Iowa Poll not as accurate as leftist admirers wanted to believe

Selzer’s full record not as pristine as leftist admirers believe

 

Referencing Selzer’s final poll prior to the 2024 General election, the one she was so wrong about Trump v Harris, Fox reports she published that:

In the 1st Congressional District, 53% of respondents said they preferred the Democratic candidate, while 37% said they would vote or have already voted for the Republican. Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan, therefore, has a 16-point lead over Republican incumbent Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in their 2022 rematch contest.

The actual result was that Republican Miller-Meeks has prevailed albeit narrowly, nevertheless indicating that besides Trump Selzer was 16 points off in her final poll for that race.

 

In 2022 Selzer early October released her poll of the statewide race for Attorney General, Republican challenger Brenna Bird  was said by Selzer to be 16 points behind Tom Miller, the longest serving AG in the country. According to the DMR’s own article:

Forty-nine percent of likely voters say they would vote for Miller, a Democrat, compared with 33% who choose Bird, a Republican.

money shot comes later and it isn’t pretty

Brenna Bird defeated Miller by 1 point , making for a 17 p0int fiasco of a poll for Selzer.  True, it was not Selzer’s final poll of the race which then showed a much closer race (still with Brenna loosing) but not to pick up the trend just a couple weeks out is a fools gold standard. There is a game that can be played by pollsters, to bolster or deflate who they want to earlier on, and in order to achieve some credibility provide a more professional poll in the one that is used for comparison to actual voting results — the final poll.

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Regarding the June 2010 Republican primary, Selzer showed Bob Vander Plaats at 29%  against then former governor Terry Branstad who she showed at 57%  — a 28 point spread.

https://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=325152

The primary results were Vander Plaats ~~ 40.9% Branstad 50.3 %.   She was off by 18.6 points — clearly unable to evaluate for that race who was likely to turn out, where a candidates support was likely coming from, or lacked any ability (or perhaps desire) to reach them.

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Election lawyer and columnist Orly Taitz produced a chart of Selzer’s performance:

Pollster Ann Selzer was off by as much as 10.5% in prior elections

From the chart, some other races Selzer was in significant error :

In the 2008 Presidential general election Obama v McCain her poll was off 7.5 from the election results which was outside the margin of error for her poll. In the 2006 Iowa congressional race of Braley v Walen she was off 9+, comparing final poll to election results. In the 1998 Vilsack v. Lightfoot race her final poll was off 10 pts to actual.   In high profile contentious races either Republicans don’t like to talk to pollsters like Selzer or she is using unrepresentative respondents or has more fliers than her sycophants realize.

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TRUMP WINS NATION-STATE-COUNTY

REPUBLICANS GAIN US SENATE AND KEEP  US HOUSE*

Trump beats Harris by 13+% in Iowa = over 214,000 votes.

Des Moines Register’s Ann Selzer on suicide watch (see previous post).

 

 

Miller-Meeks ekes out another squeaker,

 Trump wins Scott County for first time  

Abortionists, where is thy sting.  Everyone on your billboards here won reelection handily Vondran- Kauffman – Mohr – Mommsen and  Justice May on other ads, their main target, who was up for retention. Those lying spots you spent so much money on against Miller-Meeks – you failed miserably.

More analysis later 

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More on Selzer poll — defects and purposes – and the play of early voting

The following is a comment posted to the publication Townhall as regards what has been the phenomenon of the left media glomming on to the recent DMR- Mediacom fostered Selzer poll supposedly indicating Trump is behind Harris in Iowa.  Selzer argues to the effect that the poll cannot be considered a push for Dems because ~~ wouldn’t it make the Republicans work harder to get out the vote~~. Our argument is that the poll,  if not to demonstrate incompetence, the purpose as presented  is to encourage Democrats in truly battleground states.


I live in a blue county in Iowa and I can say Dems are active, more so than Repubs as far as media and yard signs. That Dems are active is not surprising, that Repub are not more is disappointing but perhaps indicative of presumptions about how the state will go. The presidential race drives too much of the spending and impinges on attention and resources for down ticket races, especially if the Dems see those races as their only hope and focus accordingly. I am looking through the blue hue here so hopefully it is rosier in most of the rest of the state.

Going by the Emerson Poll it is rosier elsewhere but Selzer is maybe loading her calls in blue counties (the 4 or 5 most populated) and all the cat ladies elsewhere in the state who are more willing to answer the phone. But I am still a bit worried about retrenchment for lack of enough fight by Republicans, congressional candidates excepted. However in more sober or less paranoid moments that the state can be predicted to flip in spite of all the other indications of Republican structural increases seems unreasonable.

If I am correctly informed of Selzer’s approach which is that she relies less on weighting and more on random calling than other pollsters, which some might argue takes pollster manipulation out of the results, she may have established the new text book example of the modern day problem with her approach, present for a number of years but this year in her rendition unameliorated by luck of the draw. More broadly referred to as the no-response bias. The problem is that “random” people do not answer their calls. A certain even if undefined “type” do and do not.

More and more “average” people do not answer their phones from unrecognized numbers and those that do might have a bias compared to those that do not. Further there is a particularly palpable resistance by Republicans and particularly Republican men to trust or respond or sit still for any political call interrogations including from honest pollsters who first must cut through the push-polling conducted by campaigns and list mining operations in order to get an interview.

And earnest pollsters are not free from sin and that is also reflected in peoples response to their calls.The tainting of their questions particularly when it comes to issues, the presumptions in the use of language is more and more understood and rejected even if not argued at the time. Their questions are stiff and fixed, and frustrating resulting in no responses, hangups, and incompletes. If more and more people do not trust pollsters, those that due may overrepresent a political nuance or view thus skewing the results. Too many pollsters may be polling unrepresentative trusting people, people who take such calls, people more likely to trust government and other people.

Perhaps Selzer and the DMR — will be properly embarrassed by their incompetence or purposeful thumb on the scale including HOW gleefully they reported the biased news. In 1948, more innocently, pollsters relied on phone contacts which, insufficiently weighted, favored Republicans. It was easy, more Republicans had non-party lines. Maybe after a solid win in Iowa by Trump — more towards the Emerson poll showing 10% margin for Trump, Trump will be able to hold up the Des Moines Register headline after he wins the election, like Truman did in the now iconic photo from 1948.

Even at that, if the DMR was honest or innocent or competent, it would only properly say the race appears to have closed, not that Harris leads, but that would not be good enough to motivate the un-voted Democrats in the other states, that hope they decided to be in service to, the true target of the headlines. It was a get out the vote effort not in Iowa, a small Electoral College state they knew was going Trump despite all their efforts over the years. It was meant for the battleground states.

The true meaning of the poll could just as well be written as Trump may get 47% to Harris 43% in Iowa as that would still be in the margin of error for both. In other words it is just as likely Trump gets 47% not 44% and Harris gets 44% not 47% and still be within the 95% confidence level from the sampling’s 3.4% margin of error.

The same confidence level and margin of error for the Emerson poll puts Trump’s support at +10 thus putting the chances beyond Harris’ reach, for that sample anyway, and assuming neither poll is a flier. One of the two polls is incredible, given all manner of other indications and trends, is significantly biased in its sample methodologies (innocent or not, ) and that poll appears to be Selzer’s.

And by the way wouldn’t an objective news organization give some analysis to an alternative poll unless they were vested (the liberal DMR is invested) in the results of the Selzer poll which they commissioned? Questions arise, did the DMR commission the results or did Selzer play to her own politics, or did she take leave of her senses in constructing and allowing publication without at least insisting on a proper presentation, if nothing else to protect her reputation (however overdone that is as she has had some doozy errors over the years)?

Proper unbiased reporting by other outlets (the usual suspects the DMR was feeding and that ate this up) is not properly a matter of just regurgitating the alleged numbers but rather to at least engage in a cursory examination of the true meaning of the numbers and avoid bias in their presentation of them, which obviously the DMR was not interested in doing. Other consumers of this crap poll if honest would at least mention the existence of a competing poll by a reputable organization, just as recent, with same sample size in same state, same margin of error and degree of confidence. At the very least the use of the Selzer poll was to push.

All that said, I am not as convinced as some of what the degree of early voting means for Republicans compared to alternative uses of resources. The time and resources expended by the formal party involvements are GOTV oriented. They do little on messaging which I maintain, if started early, done well and consistently as to why to vote R, inoculates and changes voting patterns and would be more additive than the net results the paid and volunteer drones produce by pushing early voting.

Chronically there is an inordinate expensive effort at vote by mail rather than, if it is so important to vote early, to do so more securely in person at satellite early voting locations that are reasonably generous across the state. The relative cumbersomeness of vote by mail; that it is not a good government approach to elections as it encourages, certainly enables onesy-twosy fraud; that it prevents proper voter ID, combine to create an aura against Republican interests. The costs associated with promoting one mechanism of voting rather than motivational messaging to increase support and turn more Democrat leaners into Republican voters thus turning the Dem mules into our mules — is not required for Republicans to win, biggly.

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Des Moines Register / Selzer poll — It is no October surprise that some will sacrifice every ounce of integrity to save Harris

You have heard about it by now.  It is in all the newspapers , broadcast media  etc:

Iowa Poll: Kamala Harris leapfrogs Donald Trump to take lead near Election Day. Here’s how

Never mind the Emerson poll released same day, similar number surveyed, weighted, similar margin of error:

November 2024 Iowa Poll: Trump 53%, Harris 43%

Some outfit is very wrong and we think it is most likely Selzer.

Here are links to the poll publicly released Saturday (apparently earlier to Democrats*) saying Trump is behind by 3 points in Iowa.  The matter deserves attention because of the now undeserved praise still being handed out to poll designer and manager Ann Selzer*

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2024/11/02/iowa-poll-kamala-harris-leads-donald-trump-2024-presidential-race/75354033007/

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2021/11/18/iowa-poll-results-questions-how-works-elections-issues-approval-politics/6291360001/

That is unless accuracy is not the purpose but desired effect

The poll has achieved what I believe may be its purpose — be so useful as to gel last minute enthusiasm, maybe not  Iowa so much, but to be touted by the media and Democrats (forgive redundancy)  in many states to the manipulative effect:  ~~ we can do this, see even Iowa has come around to Harris. We can win this thing everywhere!!  Join the trend, get on the bandwagon~~!!

No?  Consider this story line from the very publication commissioning the poll in question, a breathless summation of theirs about one of their similarly structure polls back in mid September: Excitement and optimism explode for Democrats with Kamala Harris as nominee.

A false or inaccurate  poll could serve other darker purposes, using the work of a “respected” pollster, however arrived at, as a cover-the-cheat poll supposedly to show a trend in support of Harris. ~~ Those found ballots were just part of a trend, don’t you know, as verified by this “respected” pollster ~~ . I put nothing past Democrats in their desperation to defeat Trump.

While the results of outlier polls can be honestly arrived at, a 95% confidence level means there is a chance a poll can be totally off from the actual sentiment, indeed 5% will be.  However this one it can be argued has elements such that only gross incompetence or purposeful skulduggery could come up with such results, according to knowledgable critiques we have seen. See the specific critiques of this poll and general comments about polling of late by pollsters or analysts — like Nate Silver, Mark Mitchell, and others.

One interesting point I believe made by Mitchell is that the national polls are probably most accurate.  (The recent Atlas poll is encouraging for us in that regard). (he Selzer poll is Iowa only. I think he was saying because of homogenization of error in national polls or biases that state polls do not weed out or are inordinately affected by, are the reasons. We think Selzer’s at least suffers from gross non-response bias. Affinities are not represented adequately because they won’t talk to pollsters or answer the phone period.

Some of the critiques of this poll would seem just devastating — maybe not career ending as Selzer can always say ~~ hey it was just a flier, I reported what I got, but look at my track record. I can’t help what people do with it~~.  Right.  But then again she looks maybe near retirement anyway.

So about the non-response bias . . . disregarding the possibility Selzer has adopted CYA pack-polling as per Nate Silver’s description of what is going on with others, and realizing that her alleged accuracy record is not uniform or unassailable, and that coming out of the leftist Des Moines Register media shop, her patron for this effort to the effect that those who pay her bills lie about Republicans all the time and especially when they think they can get away with it, putting a thumb on the scale to keep hope alive nation-wide, pretend a crack in red Iowa, shore up efforts elsewhere, encourage Harris voting herein . . . maybe the poor girl can’t find Republicans to take her calls.

We think its is a real phenomenon especially with Republicans. There is a palpable distrust of polling so no patience with the process, hang-ups, incompletes, non-responses if they do happen to pick up and find out the purpose. Fewer people answer their phones from unknown callers. We would venture that caller ID is active uniformly on land lines and certainly cell lines. The days of not knowing the ringing is from a strange number or not being suspicious this time of year that it is likely a political call, are gone. This is not the time of Princess dial phones, no screen functions at all, and inadvertent pick up and polite submission to interrogation.

So it would seem Selzer has to profile lists to call from to get enough R’s or independents to respond, or make scads of calls to get an answer and then disregard that the person who does answer just might be of a certain type, a bias of one sort or another. Perhaps Republicans she makes contact with tend toward Republicans of the ticket-splitting ilk who think of themselves as good government people on that basis and answering the phone is their duty or something . . . and surely pollsters don’t manipulate. They are still officially R’s but how R? Knowing the demographics one can examine and refine a list to find greater propensity for Trump support or not. And keep in mind that in Civic 101 we were told the polls were so wrong as regards Dewey and Truman because the bias was that more Republicans had private-line phones. The nuances as to who answers may be more subtle now but real.

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We grant permission to now vote early in person. So how are things on the electoral front going in Scott County ? Other random thoughts

This page will be our locus for shorter individual observations and thoughts through Election Day.  Comments and reports from readers to keep this current are very welcome. 

First things first: Vote R across the board with a credible exception being the Supervisor race where Independent Trevor Goodall is more R than the listed.  What we don’t want is Maria Bribriesco who Dems have pinned their hopes on. For Judges do not hesitate to vote to retain David May. For the other retention votes we also recommend yes to  Chicchelly, Langholz and Reidel.  NO on Tabor and Buller.

Early voting in person is available Friday, Saturday and Monday.

Have wee mentioned we like in person voting and think vote by mail is the devil’s playground?

Friday, November 1

  • Scott County Library, 200 N. 6th St., Eldridge, 9:00 am-3:00 pm
  • Bettendorf Public Library, 2950 Learning Center Campus, Bettendorf, 9:30 am-3:30 pm
  • Davenport Public Library, 6000 Eastern Ave., Davenport, 11:00 am-5:00 pm
  • Davenport Public Library, 3000 N. Fairmount St., Davenport, 11:00 am-5:00 pm
  • Scott County Administrative Center, 600 W. 4th St., Davenport, 8:00 am-4:30 pm

Saturday, November 2

  • Scott County Administrative Center, 600 W. 4th St., Davenport, 9:00 am-5:00 pm

Monday, November 4

  • Scott County Administrative Center, 600 W. 4th St., Davenport, 8:00 am-4:30 pm

Know that Election Day voting which we think vastly superior in integrity, security and good government compared to the vote-by-mail zeitgeist the Republican apparat is part of   — polls are open 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM.  Use your regular precinct voting location that day.

Rather than spend $$ we opted to revise a 2020 Trump yard sign. People get the point. Three doors up are a bunch of Demo signs.

As to the answer to the lead question ~~ howzit look in Scot County — hell if we know for sure, but driving around some what we see are more Democrat yard signs overall including Harris-Walz. They seem to be at the usual suspect’s domiciles and with a better spread than Republican signs.

  • Barn mural in Scott County. Dramatic, lit at night. This guy didn’t need a yard sign he made his own

    It seems Trump- Vance signs are either in short supply (except to purchase your own) or that Iowa is not a targeted state has resulted in fewer operatives making the rounds placing signs. Our own state legislative candidate Mike Vondran  has done a good job of getting his signs out and we have not seen many for his opponent. For our “Trump” advertisement we resorted to recycling a marked up 2020 sign.

  • The feminazis have had billboards up since spring decrying some evil men legislators and Supreme Court Justice May for protecting unborn baby girls.  Not in exactly those words but given the knowledge of the chromosomes of the baby in utero, girl  babies are more likely to be killed in sex selection abortion, which ironically feminazis are indifferent to. They just like bloody solutions to problem pregnancies. It is part of the right to choose the abortion promoters want to instill, any reason, any time, with your tax dollars.* There have been one or two poorly placed pro-life billboards to counteract the anti-life sentiment.
  • As for broadcast media we do not listen to a lot of TV or streaming with commercials  so others will have a better take. Same for social media — we don’t go there but do monitor the national takes available through Twitchy. What we have seen locally saddens us as Democrats seem to be doing more.
  • The music radio station that is on constantly at work, does not have near the number of political ads running as in 2022 when on that station and elsewhere Dems ran on abortion in just about every ad and Scott County and the state of Iowa saw a red wave which did not materialize elsewhere in the country. Dobbs was handed down in June of 2022.
  • That said, while Scott County did very well for Republicans in 2022, Scott County is still usually Blue for the presidency which can have coattails depending on the work ethic of the R’s running.
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