John Smith

As we approach the midterms, one thing is clear. The Democrats are united. The Republicans are not. This will have some serious repercussions. The US Senate race in South Carolina is a prime example. State law 7-11-210 requires a candidate running in a statewide primary to sign a pledge with the election commission to support the eventual nominee of the party. The candidate is specifically required to "abide by the results of the primary" and "not run or campaign as a write-in against the nominee." Ralph Norman and his family decided that they would ignore the spirit of the law and try to get by the letter of the law. How? Ralph says he will honor the law and vote for the nominee, but his family will not, and his son does an interview with "Crooked Will" of (Un)FITS News saying he will support Annie. Ralph goes on to call the nominee a fake and a fraud. All Ralph has to do is come out and say the voters spoke when 35 out of 46 counties picked Darline over him in the primary, and while he may have some differences with Darline, his differences with Annie are much greater, and he encourages all his supporters to vote for the Republican nominee. Career politician Ralph, however, who has been in politics for the last 25 years, cannot bow out gracefully and let go of power. His ego and his arrogance get ahead of the people of this state, his pledge, and just plain decency. Of course, he pulls out the same playbook he used against me when he called me (and my wife) a fraud, a fake, and "not from here." He is literally using the same words against the Republican nominee for Senate, Darline Graham. Amplified, of course, by Crooked Will of UnFITS News. Regardless of your views about the qualifications of Darline, this is not the time for payback. That time passed with the Republican primary. This is the time to compare her to Annie Andrews—yes, the same Annie who, after the 1/2023 mass shooting in CA, said, "It's the f*cking guns"; the same one who said, "Gender-affirming care for minors is not child abuse, it basically means not being an a$$hole to kids"; the same one who wants to codify Roe v. Wade with federal regulations. These are not "internet" attacks. Annie is stupid enough to have articulated these positions in her own words. So, to all Republicans, the time for infighting was over with the primaries. You may not like the result, but the nominee had to win greater than 50 percent of the primary vote. The losers don't get a do-over. That is our system of picking candidates. Codified into state law. The US House of Representatives, with a 4-seat Republican majority, is toast regardless of what poll or pundit you believe in. Losing the US Senate can be catastrophic not just for the next 2 years but for a long time. Let's start with the Supreme Court. Justice Thomas is 78. Another conservative judge, Justice Alito, is 76 and has admitted he may consider stepping down at the end of the current term in 2027. Democrats controlling the Senate will block not only Supreme Court judges but all conservative judges and any remaining Presidential appointments. For that matter, all conservative legislation will be gridlocked, and impeachments will gain oxygen. The Democrats controlling the House and Senate will introduce legislation like free health care for all, "tax the rich," which is code for tax increases for all, free college, free everything for their constituents, forcing the President to do nothing other than use his veto pen. They will then use the Presidential veto as a reason to elect a Democrat President in 2028. Nothing good will come out of losing both houses. So, to all Republicans, you may disagree with the President, or you may disagree with your Republican nominee. This is not the time to settle these scores. The alternative is much, much worse. Let's band together, ignore the losers like Norman trying to divide us, and get out and vote for ALL our nominees. If you have any doubt, I will leave you with one statistic that perhaps saved our nation—in the first 2 years of Biden, there were an average of 1.8 million border encounters in the Southwest with illegals. In the first 9 months of 2025, there were only 98k encounters—a greater than 90 percent reduction. Keep that 1 statistic in mind as you head to the polls. God bless!