Hillary Clinton’s Bad Habit of Questioning Election Results Has Spread to All Democrats

Making the click-through worthwhile: The Democrats’ position on questioning the results of an election flicks back and forth as if controlled by a light switch; Cory Booker offers some gun-control proposals and offers a hint that he hasn’t updated his notes on this issue in a while; a completely different kind of Sanders flip-flop; and an unnerving tale of violence and police inertia from Portland.

Democrats’ On-Again, Off-Again Fears about Challenging the Legitimacy of Election Results

‘If we win by four seats, by a thousand votes each, he’s not going to respect the election. He would poison the public mind. He would challenge each of the races; he would say you can’t seat these people. We had to win. Imagine if we hadn’t won — oh, don’t even imagine. So, as we go forward, we have to have the same approach.’ In recent weeks, Ms. Pelosi has told associates that she does not automatically trust the president to respect the results of any election short of an overwhelming defeat. – Nancy Pelosi, in an interview with the New York Times, Saturday.

‘You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you.’– Hillary Clinton, speaking at an “Evening with the Clintons” event in Los Angeles Saturday.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost about by 10,000 votes in Michigan, 22,000 votes in Wisconsin, and 45,000 votes in Pennsylvania.

‘I’m here to tell you a secret that makes Breitbart and Tucker Carlson go crazy: We won. I am not delusional.’ — Stacey Abrams, at the annual Houston fundraiser hosted by Annie’s List Friday.

Brian Kemp won the 2018 Georgia governor’s race by 54,723 votes, a 1.4 percentage point margin of victory.

‘Let’s say this loud and clear: without voter suppression, Stacey Abrams would be the governor of Georgia, Andrew Gillum is the governor of Florida.’ — Kamala Harris, in her keynote speech at the NAACP convention Sunday.

Gillum lost the 2018 Florida governor’s race by 32,463 votes.

Look, Democrats, pick a position and stick to it. Either sore losers who publicly doubt the fairness and legitimacy of results represent a serious problem that undermines public faith in the elections process, or they don’t. You cannot argue, as the Democrats collectively do now, that it’s only a problem when the opposition party does it.

(Pelosi imagined a scenario where a decisive four seats were won by margins of 1,000. Recounts don’t often result in dramatic changes in the vote total or margin, but it’s easier to imagine the vote totals changing by 1,000 votes or so than the tens of thousands that would have been required to change the winner in Michigan, Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania in 2016 or Florida and Georgia in 2018.)

I hate it when candidates who lost by a significant margin start insisting that they couldn’t possibly have lost, and that some sort of fraud or shenanigans must have occurred. I’m the guy who still makes fun of Roy Moore for collecting money for a recount that never happened. (Roy Moore lost by 21,924 votes.) This is a manifestation of “Heads I win, tails you cheated” mentality among narcissists who cannot believe that the electorate could dare prefer someone else.

Words have meanings. “Voter suppression” means not allowing someone to vote.

Harris proposed making Election Day a federal holiday. Whatever you think of that idea, the current state of Election Day not being a federal holiday does not constitute “voter suppression.” If it did, then none of our elections in our history have ever been free or fair.

Cutting back the early voting days from 17 to 10, as North Carolina did, or 14 to 8, as Florida did, does not constitute voter suppression. We can argue about whether it’s a good idea, but everyone who is properly registered is still allowed to vote. Ten states currently have no early or absentee voting without an excuse, and they aren’t all concentrated in the conservative deep South; they include Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Pennsylvania . . .  if you contend that the elections in North Carolina or Florida are not free and fair because the number of early voting days was reduced, then how can any election in a state with no early voting be free and fair?

Kamala Harris wants automatic voter registration. Roughly 153 million of us figured out how to do this. Thirty seven (soon to be 38) states allow you to do it online. Why is asking voters to register now considered some sort of unreasonable, insurmountable burden?

Back on October 21, 2016, when she thought she was going to win the presidential election handily, Hillary Clinton declared as part of her stump speech, “Donald Trump refused to say that he’d respect the results of this election. By doing that, he’s threatening our democracy.” What do you call not respecting the results of the election afterwards? Last month Clinton claimed, despite the conclusions of Florida elections officials and the Mueller report, “The Russians were in the county election systems of every county in Florida.”

Hillary Clinton is the worst offender, but her mentality has spread to the whole party.

Cory Booker, Promising to Ban Bump Stocks that Are Already Banned

This morning, presidential candidate Cory Booker unveiled his plan to address gun violence, which includes a new requirement that all gun owners be licensed by the federal government. This would supersede all state licensing laws, concealed-carry permits, open-carry permits, and other state regulations and rules and almost certainly face a challenge that would go all the way up to the Supreme Court. Sixteen states passed “Constitutional Carry,” which more or less declares that your permit to carry a gun is the United States Constitution.

Booker is also promises to ban bump stocks. The federal government banned bump stocks earlier this year, and the ban is in effect (even though it doesn’t look like anyone’s turning theirs in). Did Booker . . . not notice?

A Completely Different Kind of Sanders Flip-Flop

Symone Sanders — no relation to Bernie — shortly after the 2016 election:

In my opinion we don’t need white people leading the Democratic party right now. The Democratic party is diverse, and it should be reflected as so in leadership and throughout the staff, at the highest levels. From the vice chairs to the secretaries all the way down to the people working in the offices at the DNC.

Symone Sanders in a fundraising email for Joe Biden’s campaign last night:

I’m on Team Joe because I trust him to get this right. I trust him to run a campaign that has standards and values and a commitment to win the White House. I’m on his team to make sure he does just that — are you?

Ever feel like the news has a lot of people named “Sanders” in it? Bernie, Symone, Sarah Huckabee, Colonel . . .

ADDENDUM: The Portland Police Department issues a press release about protests on May Day declaring, “We asked participants to peacefully and safely demonstrate and they did.” That’s an odd way of describing a protester spraying mace into the face of journalist Andy Ngo.

The assessment of the peaceful protests comes from Portland Police chief Danielle Outlaw. Her name is a little too perfect for the circumstances.