Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are pleased to see Pat Toomey and Marco Rubio in stronger positions in their key Senate races. They also shred Pres. Obama’s patently dishonest speech calling Obamacare a great success, proposing more government involvement, and demonizing Republicans. And they groan as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump can’t even do humor well at the Al Smith dinner.
Trump
Three Martini Lunch 10/20/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America evaluate the third presidential debate. They give Donald Trump credit for his best performance on the issues and putting Hillary Clinton on the defensive but allowed the takeaway to be his refusal to accept the election results. They also hammer Hillary Clinton for her pure fiction that the landmark Heller decision was about toddlers getting access to guns, her dodging on open borders and the Clinton Foundation and letting the world know how soon we can launch nuclear weapons. And we applaud moderator Chris Wallace for picking good topics, asking tough questions of both candidates and keeping everyone in line.
Three Martini Lunch 10/18/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of National Review enjoy Marco Rubio’s demolition of Patrick Murphy in the Florida U.S. Senate debate. They also discuss the real threat of voter fraud and the extent we know it’s happening as Donald Trump warns of a rigged election. And they have fun as Politico’s Glenn Thrush is caught by Wikileaks referring to himself as a hack to John Podesta and asking Podesta not to tell anyone Thrush allowed him to look over his story and make changes.
Liberty Students Defend Public Rebuke of Falwell
Liberty University students are standing by their public criticism of school president Jerry Falwell, Jr., for what they say is “inexorably associating” the school with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
On Thursday, a group called Liberty United Against Trump released a nine-paragraph letter rebuking Falwell for his enthusiastic backing of Trump and carrying the name of Liberty University with him.
“In the months since Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed him, Donald Trump has been inexorably associated with Liberty University. We are Liberty students who are disappointed with President Falwell’s endorsement and are tired of being associated with one of the worst presidential candidates in American history. Donald Trump does not represent our values and we want nothing to do with him, the statement begins.
“Associating any politician with Christianity is damaging to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But Donald Trump is not just any politician. He has made his name by maligning others and bragging about his sins. Not only is Donald Trump a bad candidate for president, he is actively promoting the very things that we as Christians ought to oppose,” the statement says.
Liberty United Against Trump spokesman Dustin Wahl says students, who firmly rejected Trump in the primary, are fed up with Falwell associating them with Trump.
“It’s about the fact we don’t want to associate Donald Trump with Christianity, most importantly, and then also with Liberty University,” said Wahl, noting that Falwell has traveled to campaign for Trump and also spoke at the Republican National Convention.
“He carries the banner of Liberty University when he goes. That’s why people know who President Falwell is,” said Wahl.
Wahl acknowledges and seems to largely agree with the argument that Hillary Clinton will be aggressively hostile to the values Liberty holds dear. However, he says the amount of passion Falwell has for Trump’s campaign is troubling to him.
“There’s quite a difference between casting a ballot for the lesser of two evils and being kind of frustrated about it than what Falwell has been doing, which is loudly and proudly supporting Donald Trump,” said Wahl.
Wahl says students have been frustrated with Falwell since the primary season, but Trump’s comments about women in the recently released Access Hollywood tape from 2005 demanded the group dissociate from Falwell. who continues to back Trump.
“Our motto is ‘Training Champions for Christ,’ and that is supposed to be our message. Our message isn’t supposed to be endorsing any political candidate, but especially not one who directly opposes everything that we’re taught and everything we’re supposed to stand for and believe,” said Wahl.
And while stating the gospel of Christ cannot be stopped by any man, Wahl says Falwell’s actions make the work more difficult.
“It’s difficult to advance the message of Jesus Christ of salvation from our sins when we’re tying ourselves directly to a man who is not only sinful, because we’re all sinful, but who proudly preaches his sin,” said Wahl.
He says Falwell and others who defend Trump risk being branded as hypocrites.
“It’s pretty disappointing when the same people who used to say that character matters when Bill Clinton has his problems are now saying that character doesn’t matter when it comes to voting for the highest office in the land,” said Wahl.
Falwell quickly responded to the student statement.
“I am proud of these few students for speaking their minds. It is a testament to the fact that Liberty University promotes the free expression of ideas unlike many major universities where political correctness prevents conservative students from speaking out. However, I am afraid the statement is false in several respects,” stated Falwell.
Falwell stated that Trump has much more support on campus than his critics are willing to admit. He also says many of the people in Liberty United Against Trump aren’t even students and that he is always clear that he is not speaking for the university when he advocates for Trump.
He also claims his actions are biblical.
“I am only fulfilling my obligation as a citizen to ‘render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s’ by expressing my personal opinion about who I believe is best suited to lead our nation in a time of crisis,” stated Falwell, referring to Mark 12:17.
Wahl is not impressed.
“I’m not a biblical scholar but I think there’s a strong argument to be made that’s he’s maybe taking that verse out of context. I believe that had a little more to do with taxes than , not so much with endorsing a specific presidential candidate,” said Wahl.
He says even Trump supporters on campus are applauding Trump opponents for speaking out.
“We’ve received word from all kinds of Trump supporters here on campus and other places that are proud of what we’re doing. Even though they’re voting for Donald Trump, they say, ‘Look, we don’t want Liberty to be associated with a man like Trump. I personally think Hillary Clinton is worse. But I don’t want my degree tied to someone like Donald Trump even though I’m choosing to vote for him for president,'” said Wahl.
Three Martini Lunch 10/14/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud Jim’s colleague, David French, for ripping the Democrats who are horrified over Donald Trump’s actions but were only too eager to defend Bill Clinton in the 1990’s. They’re also a bit uneasy as Russia moves missiles around, asks their people if they’re ready for nuclear war and makes other ominous moves. And they react to a poll showing Trump’s lead in Texas is now at the margin of error.
The Rise of the Trumpocrats
Much attention is given to the Republican figures publicly turning their back on Donald Trump but there is also an active movement of Democrats enthusiastically backing the GOP nominee because they are convinced nothing will change if Hillary Clinton becomes president.
It’s called the Trumpcrats PAC. Executive Director Christian Rickers was a strong Bernie Sanders supporter during the Democratic primaries and determined that he would abandon the Democrats this year if his candidate did not prevail.
“Early on I decided if he was not going to win the primary, that I was not going to support Hillary Clinton. She is a career politician,” said Rickers.
Rickers says just seeing the economic decline in his own community convinced him that Hillary Clinton was the wrong choice to lead our country for the next four years.
“I came from a town with 25 manufacturing facilities 20 years ago and now it has one. Nobody is more responsible for that than the Clintons and the trade policies they’ve advocated over the years. We’ve just learned that Ford is leaving town and going to Mexico and taking all the jobs there, Carrier air conditioning and Maytag. When is this going to stop?” said Rickers.
He says the Clintons are responsible for pushing American companies to set up shop in other countries.
“We have policies in our country that incentivize our American corporations to take jobs overseas. That makes absolutely no sense to me. Why in the world would we incentivize American businesses to go overseas? Hillary Clinton’s going to do more of the same,” said Rickers.
“Donald Trump is going to reverse those policies, renegotiate the trade policies that are killing jobs in the country. I think that’s the most important thing we could do,” said Rickers.
Rickers applauds Trump for not only taking those positions but for making them a focal point of the campaign.
“Donald Trump has said he’s going to do something to bring the jobs back. That’s what most people care about. They want to be able to provide for their families,” said Rickers.
The Trumpocrats PAC is busy convincing voters in blue collar swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio to ditch their instinct to vote for Democrats.
“We’re going through the Rust Belt, Pennsylvania all through Ohio. We’ve had millions of voters who have signed up and said they are Democrats who are supporting Donald Trump. It’s going to make the difference in the election,” said Rickers.
And who are the people making this switch?
“These are blue collar people who don’t have the benefits they used to have. They don’t have the health care they used to have, no pensions anymore, no security for their families. They’re fed up with it and Washington’s not going to fix it with Hillary Clinton. Everybody knows that if she’s elected, we’re going to get more of the same. That’s why we’re having so many Democrats who are now Trumpocrats,” said Rickers.
Rickers is encouraged that more than 100,000 Pennsylvania Democrats have switched their registration to Republican, compared to about 20,000 who flipped the other way. He says the numbers are even bigger in Ohio and the movement is huge around the nation but the mainstream media doesn’t want to acknowledge it.
“I’ve been on Fox News and Fox Business a couple dozen times. We’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from that but no invitation from MSNBC or CNN or major network shows because they don’t want to report about it,” said Rickers.
It’s not just the media who don’t like the Trumpocrats movement. Loyal Democrats are not at all pleased with efforts to siphon votes away from Clinton.
“If you think the Trump supporters are nasty and they call them deplorable, you ought to see the Clinton supporters. We had a tomato thrown at us the other day at the rally near Pittsburgh,” said Rickers.
“They’re really nasty people, man. The Clintons have been doing this for years. They take a hatchet job on anybody who’s their opponent. It’s gutter politics. They’re experts at it and we need to fight back,” said Rickers.
While some of the national and battleground state polls show Trump losing ground in recent days, Rickers fully expects the race to ebb and flow all the way to November 8.
“I don’t think anybody really knows how this thing is going to shake out. That’s why people need to stay tuned, hang in there, support what we’re doing at the Trumpocrats PAC, support all the candidates that are up and down the ballot,” said Rickers.
Rickers says the Trumpocrats PAC is focused almost entirely on the presidential race but also encourages voters to support other candidates on the ballot who will advance their ideals.
Three Martini Lunch 10/13/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to Liberty University students denouncing Jerry Falwell, Jr. for making the school synonymous with Donald Trump. They also discuss reports of Trump pulling mostly or entirely out of Virginia, making his road to victory more difficult. They have fun with the Clinton team’s contradictory explanations for all the embarrassing emails coming out from Wikileaks. And they they note Bob Dylan’s winning of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Three Martini Lunch 10/7/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America point out Republicans should be making the Obamacare disaster into a huge political issue but so far they aren’t. They also discuss President Obama’s lofty approval numbers and note how they started to go up as Americans realized who the 2016 nominees were likely to be. And they slam Shep Smith of Fox News for telling Floridians to get away from Hurricane Matthew or they would all die, along with their children and everyone they know.
Three Martini Lunch 10/5/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer Mike Pence for consistently articulating conservative principles in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate. They’re unimpressed with moderator Elaine Quijano for failing to stop Tim Kaine’s incessant interruptions and tons of cross talk. And they slam Kaine’s overall performance and question the Democrats’ strategy in the debate.
Three Martini Lunch 10/3/16
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to hacked audio from February, in which Hillary Clinton says Sanders supporters are living in their parents’ basements buying into a false promise of a political revolution. They also slam Rudy Giuliani for saying we’ve all had infidelities. And we disagree that Donald Trump is a genius for using massive losses in 1995 to legally avoid federal income taxes for almost 20 years, but also slam critics who say he should have paid anyway and that paying taxes is some form of patriotism.