Some other US Senate races to watch | Hour 3

I want to welcome back to the program Stacey Matthews from redstate.com. Stacy, how are you doing today? I'm doing good, Pete, and it sounds like you are, too. I am as well, just swapping out blood for oil over here. So if you want to come on by and make a donation, we'll give you 50% off on an oil change at Jiffy Lube. It's good weather to do it today, too. It's really nice outside. It is not bad. We're under a tree, too, so we've got some shade going. We've got a breeze blowing, and considering what we've been dealing with, you know. For the last couple of weeks... This is we got lucky today. Very lucky. So, all right. We have some what you describe as unexplained weirdness up in Ohio. So this is the race for Ohio's governor. Vivek Ramaswamy is the Republican nominee. And we have Amy Acton, the Ohio Democrat. So walk us through some of these races. these examples of the weirdness of. Which you write? Well, Pete, it's just been kind of really strange. She just kind of got on a lot of people's radar nationwide, I think, in probably the last month or so. She had a campaign event about three or four weeks ago where she started acting out and yelling. At the crowd, she was trying to get them enthusiastic. It didn't work. And a lot of people compared that to the Howard Dean scream. I'm sure you remember that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for those who don't, Howard Dean was one of the major candidates for president. I think it was 2004, I believe. And he gave a goofy scream during one of his early rallies up north. And a lot of people credit that with torpedoing. His campaign, because it just made him look really goofy and out of touch. And it was one of many things, I believe, that kind of disqualified him in the eyes of Democrat primary voters. And Amy Acton had one of those moments a few weeks ago. And when you kind of look more at her, there are several campaign events, if you can, if you kind of go through these little video compilations that they do. where she's like yelling at the crowd because they're not very enthusiastic, and I think she thinks that's her way of pumping up the crowd. But there was another incident, and this was, I think, like Labor Day weekend or just before Labor Day weekend, where she was holding a campaign event at a labor union rally, and she alleged that somebody tried to assault her at the rally. There hasn't been any established motive or whatever for the person allegedly trying to assault her. But the weird thing about it, Pete, is if you watch the video, like, she was never touched. And the person didn't come within, like, what, 30 feet of her, you know? And it looked to me, and, you know, you probably have watched the video, it looked to me like the person might have been trying to take a picture and ask a question and maybe was knocked down by security. And maybe that was what prompted the allegation that she was allegedly assaulted or attempted assault or something. It was just very strange. They said the report was that this man had lunged at her. And all the video from the event shows zero lunging at all. It's just him walking over to where she was trying to, it looked like, try to get a picture with her. There's no indication that he was hostile or anything. Right, and even I think the local prosecutor there said the evidence that they had so far in the case did not support the theory that this person was a threat to her. And then you have another incident that happened fairly recently, and I believe this one might have been Labor Day weekend as well, where her handlers, she was at a campaign rally, and her handlers, there were people there that wanted to ask her questions, maybe some critics, maybe some Republican operatives or whatever, They wanted to ask her some questions, and her handlers surrounded her and started waving things at the camera so you couldn't even get pictures of her. It was no pictures, no questions, no anything. It was just really strange. It kind of reminded you in a way of some of the things we've seen happen with the Roy Cooper campaign here in North Carolina where you've got people that want to ask him questions, and his campaign people will surround him with Roy Cooper signs to try to block the camera. Why? This is not really a smart tactic, but it's a pattern with Amy Acton, and it's got people kind of raising questions about her well-being. Well, and so it's a stark contrast to the way Vivek Ramaswamy engages with people at his campaign events. Like, there's hundreds of videos of him because he's been running for governor for, like, I don't know, the better part of two years, I feel like. And he goes to all these events and people come up to him, hostile people. They come up to him and they're asking him questions and they're engaging in arguments and debates. And he just engages with them. And it is just a stark contrast. And I think hopefully I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to the governor's race there, Pete, but I hope that is a contrast that his campaign is drawing. But I think it's a good one to point out because we saw him do this, you know, when he ran for president. There would be people that came into the rallies he was at and they'd be hostile. And then you'd have other people kind of swarm in to try to quiet the person down. And he was like, no, let them say whatever they want to say. And he would talk to them. So that's a very important distinction to make, especially when you– I have a race that's probably like the Ohio Senate race is pretty close right now in terms of the polling. So I assume the governor's race is probably the same. So that's a really good contrast to make is that he's open to listening to different points of view, and he's not hostile to it, unlike Amy Acton. Yeah, and you say in your piece, if you want to hold higher office in this country, you ought to be willing to field questions and have photos and videos taken by supporters and opponents alike. And we see this also, you mentioned my good friend Ray, cut him loose, Cooper. And this is the way he behaves as well and his campaign behaves as well when he's not, you know, scurrying away and jumping into an Uber when somebody asks him a question. They just, you know, they're blocking access. This is kind of underreported, Pete, and I'm glad you pointed that out. It's kind of underreported. Roy Cooper has one of the most shielded campaigns of any of the Senate campaigns. in the competitive races in this whole country. Like the media here, of course, shields him. His handlers shield him. You know, it's almost like you just can't get access to the guy, you know, unless you're a media friendly or unless you're a supporter. And that probably is a story that needs to be explored a little bit more, you know, because he's one of the guys that tries to present himself as an everyday guy, approachable and everything. But yet when you try to approach him but you don't necessarily hold his point of view, you know, you get in trouble. Yeah. You know. Well, and that's the thing. You should be taking these questions. You're you're on a job interview. Like at the very least, there should be debates. So somebody is asking you some questions. If it's not the media, it's your opponent. But like, I don't think Cooper is going to debate. He was even asked this a couple of weeks ago and he said, oh, I'll have my staff look at it if, you know, if it comes up or something. It was like this It wasn't even a firm no. He's just like, oh, I'll have somebody explore the idea. And it's like, well, you want to be the senator, you're on a job interview here. And if we can't ask questions on a job interview, how are we supposed to hire the person? And of course, this is the point of the campaign. It's not a smart tactic, Pete, in a state like ours and in Ohio, where these races can be very competitive. And we have a heavy... block of independent voters here. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, we have more people registered as independents in this state than we do Republicans and Democrats. You know, Cooper and Whatley both would do themselves well to be engaging with more of these people who are kind of, I guess, middle of the road or unsure of where they are, and to cut off the conversation and to even just suggest, well, I'm not sure if I'm going to do this. Let me ask my staff. That doesn't look very decisive. You know, I mean, he should be wanting to debate Whatley. You know, if he's so much greater than Whatley, let's hear from him. You know, but he's, like I said, he's one of the most shielded Senate candidates in all of the competitive races. And that might be something that I explore in a future piece of Red State. Yeah, I concur. I totally agree. All right, so you mentioned Howard Dean, his home state of New Hampshire. You call this, or you quote somebody saying, the most overlooked Senate race ever. And so this is interesting. You've got Democrat Representative Chris Pappas going up. He's a Democrat. And then going up against the Republican Senator John Sununu. I almost said John Thune. Oh, my gosh. And both are vying for the seat currently held by Democrat Gene Shaheen, who's not running for reelection. And Sununu, I mean, like his family, like the political dynasty of the Sununu family. His brother was a governor. multiple terms. Dad was a governor, multiple terms, I believe. This guy, Pappas, he's a Democrat representative. So new news obviously got the edge, I would say, on the name ID statewide. And so you say that Democrats are officially hitting the panic button. So why? They are hitting the panic button. And it's because this race has become unexpectedly competitive for them. I think there is like this miss from a lot of people, Republican and Democrat operatives, that New Hampshire is kind of a safe blue state. But if you look at the data, they are pretty famous for electing Republicans statewide. Obviously, Chris Sununu, who is John Sununu's brother, he was elected to the governor's chair four times. They have two terms, two years as governor there. And he served eight years as governor. Their dad served six years back in the 80s as governor. John Sununu, the John Sununu who was running for Senate, he was previously a senator there. And before that, he was in the House of Representatives. So they have a history there. And Kelly Ayotte, for example, is another example of a Republican who was elected statewide in New Hampshire. And she also was elected as governor. She took over for Sununu. So they actually do vote for Republicans in New Hampshire. And it's more of a, I would say, a purplish, light blue state than it is like a deep blue state. So this kind of flew around. under everybody's radar. But there have been two recent polls taken, I think it was mid to late August, and it showed Sununu with the edge over Pappas in a hypothetical matchup. They didn't have their primary until September the 8th, but Pappas and Sununu are the nominees now. And Pappas is like, you know, the Democrats need to stop ignoring this state because it's competitive. And I think he said it's only been twice in the last 50 years that a Republican has held a Senate seat in New Hampshire. The two that hold it now are Democrats, but that's actually the exception to the rule. All right. For over a year now, you've heard me talking about Create-A-Video, great local company in Mint Hill that has helped more than two million families preserve their memories by turning old photos. VHS tapes, film reels, and slides into lasting keepsakes. Now, Creative Video is helping families and groups create brand new memories while they're traveling. Introducing Group Travel Videos. Perfect for family reunions, church mission trips, group vacations, destination weddings, student trips, senior adult groups, sports teams. 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You can email Katie. Katie at GroupTravelVideos.com. Group travel videos from old memories to new adventures, preserving life's moments for a lifetime. Our apologies for that. Apparently our connection got dropped there with Stacey Matthews from redstate.com. That was our fault, Stacey. You did nothing wrong. But I was going over this piece that she had at redstate.com, and she was talking about voters in New Hampshire historically are used to splitting their tickets, like North Carolina, but sort of in the opposite way. So in New Hampshire, as she was saying, they often favor Republicans for governor, but Democrats in federal contests for like U.S. Senate, basically. And in North Carolina, it's the inverse, right? We tend to send Republicans to Washington, D.C., but we elect Democrats at the governor and attorney general level. And so she says it's possible that we could be seeing what is described as a mini red wave in New Hampshire, just in New Hampshire. And this does happen. And it happened here in North Carolina, for example. But in 2022, this was a mini red wave locally where Republicans won control of the state Supreme Court that year. It was the second election cycle in a row where the old North State bucked national trends and and put more Republicans in power. And she points out who the North Carolina Republican Party chairman was during that time period, Michael Watley, who's running for U.S. Senate right now. Speaking of the. U.S. Senate race in North Carolina, saw this story in the Charlotte Observer the other day. Headline, Will backlash to data centers' flock cameras impact North Carolina's U.S. Senate race? My answer is no, but maybe. By the way, there's an old axiom in the news business that if the headline is. Formed as a question, then the answer is usually no. It's just it's a headline. It's it's the it's the old school equivalent of clickbait. Right. So they ask the question to make you think, oh, my gosh, is this possible? Could this happen? And the answer is no. But the spread, she says, Mary Ramsey, the reporter, the spread of large scale data centers and flock surveillance cameras has triggered backlash in North Carolina with both candidates in the state's hotly contested U.S. Senate race speaking out and facing questions about the issues. But that does not mean they're likely to become decisive issues on Election Day. There you go. Probably not. So it's triggered a backlash. And is it going to be decisive? No. A growing number of North Carolina municipalities, including Charlotte, have enacted temporary moratoriums on new data centers as they weigh how to handle the facilities in the long term. Also, backlash has grown in recent months against Flock Safety's automatic license plate readers. You may have seen these referred to as ALPRs, automatic license plate readers. And I do find some of the arguments around the readers is kind of... I don't want to say interesting because it's not really. Well, I guess it is. It is of interest to me. So, like, on the one hand, and I've said, like, in my view, cameras are basically replacements for law enforcement, right? So if you're trying to track down a stolen vehicle, a kidnapping victim, something like that, they can. Be a very useful tool. However, just like all tools, they can be abused. They can be used for bad things. And we have covered those stories where you know, local police officers access these databases and they use. It to stalk their, you know, ex-wives or something. So, like, that's not cool either. And then there's views that would occur, like, for example, what if we had these things during COVID? Do you think that local government, that state government, that Roy Cooper as governor, do you think he would not have utilized this technology in order to track people If they were, you know, you didn't go out to your essential job, I saw you driving to a park or something like that. But there's also this argument that I find to be a little perplexing, which is people are like, oh, they're going to use it to write tickets. Okay, so we should not obey the speed limits? Yes. Like, that's the argument, that's one of the arguments that I'm not really tracking very well because it seems like people are saying that they don't want the cameras because they want to be able to violate traffic law. Now, if you turn these things against these 30-day, the dirty 30 tags, all these fake temporary license plates that we all know you just buy them online and then you can avoid paying taxes and all of this, like, that would be useful. Turn the ALPRs on those folks. Surely, I mean, I've seen photos of cars sitting at intersections that have the identical 30-day ticks. Two different cars right next to each other at a stoplight, and they have the same tick, right? Like, it's such a racket. Anyway, this is Elon University political science professor Jason Husser. He is the director of the Elon University poll, which just... put a poll out and found that 53% of North Carolinians said that they... oppose a large data center being built in their community. 53%. 22% said they would support a large data center. 26% said they are not sure. Opponents outnumbered supporters across race, gender, ages, and political affiliations. But Husser noted there was still. Some partisan differences in opposition to data centers. Overall, you have a plurality of Democrats, independents and Republicans opposed to data centers if they were to be proposed in their local community. And that's to me, this is kind of vague because I don't know what they mean by local community. Like, do you mean next door to my house? Yes. Or do you mean three miles down the road? Or do you mean on the other side of the city? Like, what is that being defined as? But opposition is far higher among Democrats and unaffiliated than Republicans, which is not surprising. There is less data available about how North Carolina voters feel about the flock cameras. So where do the two candidates stand on the data centers? And the flock cameras. So where do the two candidates for U.S. Senate stand on data centers and flock cameras? Charlotte Observer, looking at the Cooper campaign website, it includes a pledge to make sure data centers, this is under his make stuff cost less agenda, which is. Just basically bullet points. So this is just from his website. Make sure data centers pay the full cost of all the power they use and prevent costs from being passed on to consumers. Okay. Also, local communities should be fully involved in any decision made about potential data centers in their neighborhoods. Asked if Cooper supports moratoriums, moratoria, or bans on new data centers, a campaign spokesman named Jordan Monaghan told the Charlotte Observer that The candidate, quote, believes local communities must have the final say on new projects coming to their area, which includes local moratoriums. Okay, so status quo. This is not controversial. Let the locals decide on the siting and the zoning and screening issues and that sort of stuff. Yeah, they shouldn't cost taxpayers. They shouldn't be subsidized. But he's not taking a position against them. He's just saying that's on you to decide. In an August interview, well, he's not saying that. His campaign has said that. In an August interview with Fox News, Whatley said opposition to data centers is not organic and is being ginned up, which is true. But he also said in the same interview that you've got to make absolutely sure that there's not going to be a disparate impact on the community when it comes to water, when it comes to traffic, when it comes to electricity. He told Fox News it makes sense to have tax breaks for data centers, but not subsidies. So a tax break, but not a subsidy. But isn't a tax break, like, isn't that kind of a subsidy? The Republican believes data centers should pay their own way, except for the tax break, I guess, and that counties and towns should decide what gets built in their communities. So that's kind of the same. So they're basically the same. asked about the flock cameras. Monaghan said Cooper has real concerns and believes it's important for law enforcement to have the best tools to catch criminals. And keep people safe. Okay, so that's it. So you should have the tools, but he wants to guard against abuses. Okay, so nothing really there either. Whatley's campaign did not respond to that question from the Charlotte Observer, apparently. Now, maybe, I'm just spitballing here, but maybe more flock cameras in Mooresville, particularly inside City Hall. Maybe. I'm just throwing this out there. Because the pantless mayor, or pantsless mayor, he now says he's done everything he set out to do And so he is going to step down because he was just so successful before he got caught with literally his pants down, with no pants on. Walking around City Hall. Mooresville Mayor Chris Carney said he will retire effective September 30th and hand his office to Town Commissioner and Mayor Pro Tem Eddie Dingler. So the pantsless mayor being replaced by Dingler. Maybe. We shall see. That's I mean, temporarily at least. Carney said he would, sorry. That he had fulfilled all the goals he announced when he sought the office, including curbing all the apartment complexes that emerged along NC-150 and other main arteries without retail and commercial components under past town boards. So he is proud that he was able to limit the number of housing being developed. He also cited what he called the town's strong economic development initiatives he says this left the town on solid financial footing and he now looks forward to traveling with his wife and said there's no chance in the world I'm going to seek another office I've already done that and got the trophy for it okay I'm not I'm not sure like did somebody give him a trophy for this Like, you're resigning after being caught walking around without your pants on in City Hall with some other woman that was, according to him, the DD. Like, she drove him to City Hall, and then he claims he got sick, that he threw up, because he had left his phone at the office after drinking with some of his colleagues at a restaurant or something, and he said it was some wine, but then later on in an interview he said, Yeah, I found Jesus, but then I also found vodka. So I'm not sure if he was on vodka or wine or whatever. And then he, oh, I left my phone at the office, but I had some medicine. It was interacting poorly. And then I threw up and it got on my pants. And so that's why I was walking around without my pants on. And now I got the trophy for all of this. And so now I'm resigning so I can travel. He said, this has been a long time plan. It's not happenstance. This is a long time plan. So he totally meant to do just... I appreciate that you're just going away. I wish more disgraced politicians would do that too. But none of this is necessary. Just announce your resignation and just go. He says they're going to stay in the Mooresville community. And he said his retirement has nothing to do with the, quote, silliness made over the night that he fell ill. In town hall. This is completely unrelated. He would not have served out the remainder of his term anyway. He just he did everything he promised to do. And then he got caught pants on and now he's resigning. These two are unrelated, completely unrelated. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to ThePeteCalenderShow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.