ADVERTISEMENT

Republicans push Kanye 2020. But will it really hurt Biden?

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
77,133
58,316
113
Kanye West's unlikely White House bid is getting help qualifying for presidential ballots in key states from Republicans around the country, fueling suspicions he's being pushed to run by allies of President Donald Trump hoping to siphon support away from Joe Biden.


The rapper qualified for Colorado's presidential ballot on Thursday, after the Secretary of State's office verified that nine electors he submitted are all registered to vote in that state. One of those was Matthew Zielinski, is a former Republican congressional candidate who served as an officer with a county Republican Party in suburban Denver.

Zielinski tweeted that he believed in “fair ballot access” but declined further comment.

A similar pattern has played out in in Wisconsin, Ohio, Vermont and Arkansas, where lawyers or activists with GOP ties have been involved in securing the star's place on the ballot. The successful effort in battleground states Wisconsin and Ohio in particular raised red flags for Democrats, who are braced for a close race and anxious about any third-party candidate drawing voters.

Trump’s reelection campaign has denied involvement, with spokesman Tim Murtaugh saying, “We have no knowledge of what Kanye West is doing or who is doing it for him.”

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said, “I like Kanye very much” but added: “I have nothing to do with him being on the ballot. I’m not involved.”



West himself has hinted he may be in the race to detract from Biden. When an interviewer from Forbes suggested as much in a text message Thursday, West responded, “I’m not denying it."

The Biden campaign did not respond to messages seeking comment Thursday. Still, the former vice president enjoyed strong support among African American voters during the Democratic primary and is counting on topping Trump by wide margins with them, as well as young voters, in November. Having West, who is Black and a hip-hop icon, on the ballot could be a ploy to hurt Biden with both sets of voters.

A third-party candidate with name recognition as high as West could undoubtedly influence a close election. In Wisconsin in 2016, there were 36,460 write-in votes for president — exceeding Trump’s statewide margin of victory of 22,748, said David Jackson, a political science professor at Bowling Green State University whose research focuses on the links between young people’s entertainment and political preferences.

But African Americans tend not to vote for candidates solely because they are Black, while West's status with Americans age 18 to 29 is actually more unfavorable than favorable, Jackson said. That means Republicans working to ensure he competes with Biden may not be able to peel many of their target voters away from the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.



“It proves that people from the opposite party really know nothing about the appeal of the other party," Jackson said.

It's also possible West could actually draw support away from Trump, since he's been an outspoken supporter of the president in the past.

The Republicans involved include Lane Ruhland, a lawyer with longstanding ties to the Wisconsin Republican Party, who was captured on video dropping off signatures on West’s behalf to the election board there. The Ohio attorney who filed a ballot access form on West’s behalf in that state, Matthew Aumann, an associate at a Columbus law firm that has been paid thousands of dollars in legal consulting fees by the state House and Senate Republican campaign committees, campaign finance records show.

West’s ballot paperwork in Arkansas lists as a point of contact Gregg Keller, the former executive director of the American Conservative Union. In Vermont, Charles H. Wilton is a West elector despite previously being chosen as a delegate to the Republican National Convention.

West, meanwhile, missed qualifying for New Jersey’s ballot and also failed to file in South Carolina — despite holding a recent rally there where he railed against Harriet Tubman and sounded far from someone seriously preparing to seek the presidency.



West has yet to make enough ballots to have a mathematical chance of winning the 270 Electoral College votes needed to clinch the White House. That makes him ineligible for the part of the race where he might have the most visible effect, participating in debates, according to rules set by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates.

West has nonetheless insisted that his bid is serious. But his wife, Kim Kardashian, has noted that he has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and asked the public show him compassion.

“Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words some times do not align with his intentions,” Kardashian posted on her Instagram Live feed.

https://nonpareilonline.com/news/na...cle_214c8d2b-ce59-5d0b-a797-c0b7ed5da70e.html
 
FYI qualifying for Colorado's ballot is easy if you have money which Kanye has. You just pay $1,000 and you are printed on the ballot.
 
  • Like
Reactions: cigaretteman
Shouldn't Republicans worry about putting forth a platform that will benefit American citizens? Instead they are worrying about how to keep people from voting, gerrymandering districts. or finding some alternative candidate to siphon off votes.
Instead of bitching about Republican tactics, maybe Dems should learn to fight fire with fire. Convince Tulsi to run as an independent while tweeting daily videos of herself doing squat thrusts in yoga pants and a sports bra so middle-aged Republican males can vote for her instead of Trump.
 
Instead of bitching about Republican tactics, maybe Dems should learn to fight fire with fire. Convince Tulsi to run as an independent while tweeting daily videos of herself doing squat thrusts in yoga pants and a sports bra so middle-aged Republican males can vote for her instead of Trump.
she should have run as the dem instead of biden. they tossed her aside quickly. I think it was hills who called her a russian. maybe she was jealous of the yoga pants?
 
Instead of bitching about Republican tactics, maybe Dems should learn to fight fire with fire. Convince Tulsi to run as an independent while tweeting daily videos of herself doing squat thrusts in yoga pants and a sports bra so middle-aged Republican males can vote for her instead of Trump.

I'm guessing Tulsi would pull a lot of Dem votes.
 
Instead of bitching about Republican tactics, maybe Dems should learn to fight fire with fire. Convince Tulsi to run as an independent while tweeting daily videos of herself doing squat thrusts in yoga pants and a sports bra so middle-aged Republican males can vote for her instead of Trump.

Is there any reason to think Republican males would prefer Tulsi in yoga pants over Trump? I'm not even sure they would prefer her over him, intimately.
 
I'm guessing Tulsi would pull a lot of Dem votes.
Doubtful. Establishment Dems hate Tulsi. She was hovering around 1% support throughout most of the early campaign. They have hated her ever since she resigned from the DNC in 2016 to support Bernie.
 
She couldn't pull votes for herself in the primaries, she isn't going to pull votes that weren't there.

You don't think she could pull some votes from people who are unhappy about Joe Biden? She didn't pull much in the primaries but that was a crowded field.
 
You don't think she could pull some votes from people who are unhappy about Joe Biden? She didn't pull much in the primaries but that was a crowded field.
Maybe. If we could convince Romney to run, Trump would be history. The only problem is he would probably beat Biden too.
 
Maybe. If we could convince Romney to run, Trump would be history. The only problem is he would probably beat Biden too.

At this point Romney would probably pull more votes from Biden than Trump.

Honestly the way it is now. . . Either you are in Trump's cult or you are not and there is very little in between anymore. Trump's cult are going to vote for him no matter what. However everyone outside his cult could have their votes split. So honestly the more candidates in the election the worse it is for Biden. Because the people who might vote Biden are a loose coalition of non cult like people. They don't have very much of a broad agreement about politics. So they can be convinced to take their vote elsewhere.

Trump's supporters could not be convinced to vote for anyone else. They might try and make excuses for their vote but ultimately they are a fan of all of the evil that Trump is. . . they just want to convince themselves that they are a good person before they go and support evil.

For the record I don't think Kanye makes very much of an impact on the election.
 
  • Like
Reactions: cigaretteman
I’m willing to bet that Hillary looked pretty damn good in a pair of yoga pants in 1968, assuming that yoga pants existed in 1968.

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/us/politics/05clinton.html

GettyImages-505942271470856930.jpg


070905_hillary1969_vlrg_530a.grid-4x2.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: TJ8869
Why would ANYONE push a bi-polar person into a political position while he's clearly having a manic episode? Kanye anything doesn't make any logical sense to me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: cigaretteman
It was an obvious ploy that exposes just how dumb Republicans think black people are.

This. If you think "Kanye is going to split the black vote!", you must admit that you don't know any black people personally.

Here's some crowd shots from Kanye West shows.
kanye_al_powers_t1000.jpg

65399cd35ec5d9f4e792be882af60d82.jpg

kanye-westwm-1024x683.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: BioHawk
It seems to work pretty well for the GOP. Hell, that's pretty much all their platform is. Half pissing people off and the other half trying to scare the shit out of people. They certainly don't have any actual policy ideas to run on.

Socialism! Tax cuts, guns, God, dead babies.
 
  • Like
Reactions: blhawk
ADVERTISEMENT