So I saw a new piece of Corey Stewart today, and it made me remember to order my absentee ballot for the primary.

Tell me, TR, who should I vote for? Ralph Northam, the current Lt. Gov., or Tom Perriello?

Not going to lie, Perriello has the advantage here because his dog Jack is listed on his page as the campaign hound:




Anyway, as for Stewart...

If you haven't heard of Stewart, well, he is pretty much pretending to be Trump and is basically a big old piece of shit, but he may not end up getting the Republican nomination:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/a-voice-of-trumpism-struggles-to-find-an-audience-in-virginia/2017/03/16/566a6ce0-fbcc-11e6-be05-1a3817ac21a5_story.html

At a public celebration last summer, Corey Stewart, Prince William County's top Republican, praised his county's diversity and welcomed the renaming of a middle school once christened for a prominent segregationist.

Five months later, in the throes of his campaign for the Republican nomination for governor of Virginia, Stewart joined a group railing against the planned removal of a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee from a park in downtown Charlottesville.

"We've got to defend our culture, we've got to defend our heritage," Stewart barked before supporters that included men holding Confederate flags, according to a video on his Twitter page.

With a ravenous appetite for rhetorical bombast, Stewart is campaigning as an unapologetic disciple of President Trump, echoing the president's populist diatribes against the Republican establishment, undocumented immigrants, political correctness and the media.

Yet in purple Virginia, the only Southern state that Trump lost to Democrat Hillary Clinton, Stewart is struggling to captivate voters. Three months before the June 13 primary, polls show him in single digits, far behind front-runner Ed Gillespie, a former lobbyist and adviser to President George W. Bush, in a field that also includes state Sen. Frank W. Wagner (R-Virginia Beach).

Stewart, in a telephone interview, expressed no concern about disagreements with allies, saying they are a routine fact of his combative political life. He offered a broad rebuke of those who criticized him at the supervisors' meeting as "the same old liberal whack jobs who have been protesting me for 10 years."

Stewart's credentials as a self-styled voice of Trumpism may seem dubious, since the president's own campaign dismissed him as its Virginia co-chairman in October. Stewart had ignored the campaign's order to refrain from protesting the national Republican Party's treatment of Trump.

"He got fired for not following directions," said John Fredericks, Trump's Virginia co-chairman. "He may own the Trump style but he doesn't own the Trump brand. The Trump people don't like him."

Told about Fredericks's remarks, Stewart said, "I hate that guy," and contended that he was fired "because I was too loyal." He remains devoted to Trump, he said, and is confident that he can ride the anti-establishment spirit the president unleashed to the governor's mansion.

"In-your-face conservatism," Stewart said, describing Trumpian politics. "I'm the anti-establishment candidate who's going to burn the s---house down."

This is the best part!

During a rally for the statue in mid-February, counter demonstrators shouted Stewart down. He cited the altercation with what he described as "radical left-wing agitators" in subsequent fundraising pleas.

While he was at the rally, Stewart met the leaders of a fledgling right-wing group known as Unity and Security for America, who asked him to return the following week for a news conference. He accepted the invitation.

The group, which has fewer than a dozen members, supports immigration laws "that require that most immigrants come from Western countries," according to its website. Jason Kessler, the leader of the group, tweeted in November that Trump is "the savior of Western Civilization" and that "his acts of bravery have inspired a movement that will outlive us all."

"Corey Stewart showed up when we needed him," said Isaac Smith, a spokesman for the group. "He stood by us."

Last August, Stewart spoke at the renaming ceremony for the Mills E. Godwin Middle School, a Woodbridge building originally named in honor of a former governor who, as a state lawmaker in the 1950s, led the "massive resistance" movement against school integration. The county's board of education renamed Godwin for an African American philanthropist, George Hampton.

"It's been a long, long, long time in coming, that's for sure," Stewart told the audience at the ceremony. "A lot of things have changed in Prince William County since 1970, and let me tell you something. Those changes have been good."

He described Prince William as "the most progressive, futurist county in the United States."

Recalling the moment, Willie Deutsch, a conservative school board member, said it suggested that Stewart "is more focused on winning over audiences he is speaking to than sticking with a core set of principles."

"At times he may be hard right, at other times he may be more of a pragmatic conservative," Deutsch said. "He reinvents himself to create the version of himself he thinks he needs to be to move to the next level."

Stewart waved off that depiction, saying that his views on immigration and diversity have remained consistent. He said he had opposed removing Godwin's name from the school despite his remarks at the ceremony.

"I wasn't going to rain on the parade," he said.

So yeeeeah. I live in PWC. I don't know if this fucker will show up on my ballot when he's up for re-election for his county seat in 2019 because I don't know if the at-large members are elected by the whole county or by their specific district. He's not in my specific district. But if I see his name anywhere, idgaf who the other person is, I'm voting for them.

why is virginia having a governor's election wasn't McAuliffe elected like a year ago?

eta: seig heil for that guy I guess good lord

Virginia is weird. You can serve however many times you want as governor, but you can't serve consecutive terms. McAuliffe was last elected in 2013.

hahaha that is the dumbest form of term limits I've ever heard of

our entire political structure is such hot garbage

I didn't realize it was that long ago for McAuliffe. What's the dem prospects look like for holding the seat?

Polling so far suggests that if Gillespie and Northam are the nominees, then it's a close race with maybe Gillespie coming out ahead. Northam has an easier time if one of the others wins the Republican nomination. I haven't seen much in the way of polling for Perriello since I think everyone's assuming Northam will get it.

Goddamn this guy is such a fucking try-hard:

https://twitter.com/CoreyStewartVA/status/856699414907367424

btw he's from Minnesota. lol.

Goddamn this guy is such a fucking try-hard:

https://twitter.com/CoreyStewartVA/status/856699414907367424

Owning human beings is not worse than a Yankee telling a Southerner that his monuments don't matter. Noted.

Haha, he also posted this hilariousness:

https://twitter.com/CoreyStewartVA/status/856642253003128832

First, they tried to put civil war monuments in a museum, and I said nothing....

lol lookit these lib snowflakes

Sounds like Stewart is Foghorn Leghorn's evil twin.

so I gather periello is the better democrat.  he has the support not only of the bernie bros but of pretty much all obama's people (including obama himself, sort of...?).

is there a case for crossover voting in the gop primary for any reason?

also, what should I think of people in the downticket races?

I already sent in my absentee ballot without any of your help so figure it out yourself.

fine, I will vote bart roberts style

is there a case for crossover voting in the gop primary for any reason?

Haven't you learned your lesson yet?

No, there is no case for a crossover vote . . . ever.

I'm quite proud of being the only person here to vote against trump twice

btw, 4 hours til polls close and meep still hasn't told me who to vote for.  tick tock, tick tock...

cue Jeopardy! theme

meep, if you leave me unable to vote and that sets off a chain of events leading to trump's reelection, I'm going to be very disappointed in you

You probably have different down ballot candidates. I voted for Tom and Justin Fairfax. The other 2 lt governor candidates seemed fine, too, but I didn't spend a lot of time on that. For my state rep, I voted for Elizabeth Guzman. How could I not vote for the Latina immigrant?

didn't realize there were only two choices to make.  I was worried I'd have to have an opinion on like 5 races.  I'd already made up my mind for governor. 

for lt. governor, there were three choices.  30 seconds on Wikipedia revealed that one of them used to work for a tobacco company.  so I crossed that one off and chose from the other two based on which name struck me as more recognizable (fairfax, of course).

would have been great to have a more considered opinion of the lt gov race, but meep didn't give me one in time. *smh*

eta: heh, crosspost

They're calling it for Northam.

And already the "OMG morally bankrupt centrist RepubliCON in sheep's clothing JUST LIKE HILLARY ALL OVER AGAIN" hot takes begin.

Nevermind that their platforms were so similar that I couldn't make up my fucking mind and watching one of their debates made me even more undecided. Honestly, the hound dog was the deciding factor because look at that precious doggo.

eta

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/874784547489165312

jesus christ, my people are dumb.

Do we know that Northam doesn't have a dog?
If he doesn't he should probably get one ASAP.

fine, I will vote bart roberts style

What does that mean?

anyway I voted for Northam and Fairfax

bart used to reply to message board polls by just checking all the boxes