Sean Contacts Presidential Candidates

Virginia's Presidential primary takes place on Tuesday, March 5th. Virginia has open primaries, meaning that you show up to your polling place and simply ask for a Democratic or Republican ballot. While this generally doesn't impact the overall results, it does make things interesting. For example, in 2008, I remember some Republicans saying they would vote for Barack Obama in the primary believing he would be easier to defeat in the general election than Hillary Clinton. (I'm not sure if this is true or not since John McCain only defeated Mike Huckabee by about 45,000 votes in the 2008 Republican primary and Obama defeated Clinton by almost 300,000 votes in the Democratic primary).

So that brings us to 2024. Here are your ballots for Tuesday's primary: 

I contacted the campaigns of everyone on both the Republican and Democratic primary ballots and asked one simple question: Why should Virginians vote for you? (Or if the candidate has withdrawn, who do you support and why?)

Here are the responses:

Nothing. No one replied. Actually, I take that back. I received a "Failure Notice" that the email account I tried to reach does not exist message from Vivek Ramaswamy. I appreciate the fact that his campaign completely ended and decided to stop paying for things like email addresses.

While Sean's Ramblings isn't CNN, The Washington Post, Fox News, or any of the local news stations in the Washington, Richmond, or Virginia Beach markets, this seems like a missed opportunity for candidates to communicate directly with voters on a smaller scale. 

So where does this leave Virginia voters? My guess is that most Republicans will vote for Trump, most Democrats will vote for Biden, and others will vote for a candidate of the opposite party as a "protest" vote. And maybe candidates will want their voices heard on Sean's Ramblings in future elections! 

Voting Results In My Neighborhood

I like my neighborhood. It’s a community of about 1,800 condos, townhouses, and single-family homes in Northern Virginia built around an 18-hole golf course. The fact that I can say that I live on (or across the street from) a golf course sounds much more fancy than it is. There’s a pool we use in the summer, a playground for the kids, and tennis courts and a fitness center that I barely use. It’s also a unique community in its diversity. All ages live here, and there are people from many different cultures and ethnicities. It’s been a good place to live over the last 10 years.

With today being election day in Virginia (and several other states), I thought it would be fun to go back to see how candidates have fared in our precinct since I moved here. Here are the results from the 2012 and 2016 primaries.

In 2012, Mitt Romney defeated Ron Paul by a 2-to-1 margin. Were there no other candidates running in the 2012 Republican primary?

In 2016, Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio(!) got the most votes. What's amazing to me is that Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush, and Carly Fiorina all got exactly 1 vote each. Jim Gilmore got two!

Overall, based on the November general elections results in both 2012 and 2016, it appears that there are more Democratic voters than Republican voters in my precinct, but it's not a huge majority.

Anyway, I just thought it would be interesting to share this, and I plan on updating this post soon with the 2020 Democratic Presidential primary results.

John Kerry is Kung Fu Fighting

I am a few days late on this one, but Express featured this picture on its Friday cover after John Kerry endorsed Barack Obama.



Am I the only one who thought that this picture showed Obama trying to hold back Kerry from a fight? I just hope that Kerry isn’t going to try and fight Nolan Ryan



or Mike Huckabee if Chuck Norris is around.



The Kerry-Obama picture is by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images.

Post New Hampshire Notes

I have some thoughts following Tuesday night’s New Hampshire primary.

I was really hoping that John McCain or Hillary Clinton started their victory speech by saying "Don't call it a comeback. I've been here for years."

When Mike Huckabee won in Iowa, Chuck Norris was on stage supporting his candidate. When John Edwards gave his concession speech after the polls closed in New Hampshire, James Denton of Desperate Housewives shared the stage supporting his candidate. Norris vs. Denton? Advantage Huckabee.

After Edwards’ speech, Keith Olbermann made awkward conversation by asking everyone at the MSNBC studio if they watch Desperate Housewives. Chris Matthews responded no, but that he likes Teri Hatcher. Thanks for that insight Chris.

Boo to John Edwards on several counts. First, he entered the room to “This is Our Country” by John Mellencamp. Find me a sports fan who likes this song after hearing it about 1,000 times in Chevy commercials over the past two years. In addition, Edwards gave a fairly depressing speech about people who have suffered since they do not have health care. Way to fire up your supporters!

Hillary Clinton also discussed serious issues during her speech, but somehow it came off better than Edwards’ speech. Of course, it helped by the excitement in the room. At one point she discussed children who "can't afford to go to college and pursue their dreams." This was followed by loud applause and cheering. Were these people even listening to the speech?

I continue to wait for one of the primary/caucus winners to end their speech by naming numerous states and finishing with "and then we're going to Washington, D.C., to take back the White House! Yeaararh!!!"

Fred Thompson seemed like a popular candidate when he was just an actor considering running for President. Four months later, he’s in New Hampshire receiving 1% of Republican primary votes. Is he waiting for the writers’ strike to end before returning to Law & Order?

I am really intrigued by Rudy Giuliani’s strategy. He punted Iowa and New Hampshire and is hoping to win in the bigger states like Florida. It doesn’t seem like a very good strategy, but what do I know?

Although we are a long way from the conventions, I would love to a convention where we don’t know who will win. When was the last time this happened? That would make excellent television, especially on the Republican side if there’s still a chance that Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are all still vying for the nomination.

By the way, who came up with the ridiculous name Tsunami Tuesday? There was a traumatic tsunami that hit Indonesia only a few years ago? Is the name supposed to represent the tragedy of several candidates realizing that their dreams of becoming President are over? Let’s stick with Super Tuesday or even the Tuesday after Groundhog Day Tuesday.

How did I go through an entire presidential political entry without mentioned Barack Obama?