Folks:

Take polling in the presidential race not with a grain of salt, but with a brick of it. Any of those developed for cattle or deer will do.

Only two polls I can find (the Investor's Business Daily / TechnoMetrica poll (IBD/TIPP) and University of Southern California Dornslife / Los Angeles Times poll. - Bizarrely, the LA Times ignored their own polling and suggested a Hillary victory with 352 electoral votes.) Actually made the right call.

Story here: https://clarkcountypolitics.blogspot.com/2016/11/no-media-bias-youre-kidding-right-la.html

I point this out because much of recent polling is showing that Trump is winning and in some instances, that it could be something of a landslide.

You know, the same way they claimed Hillary was going to bury Trump.

Early on, several months ago, I suggested that you ignore 100% of what you "hear," and half of what you see for yourself.

That warning is now more important than ever.

Regardless of who you're supporting at any level, from local to federal, do the work.

Do not be an ignorant voter. Do not rely on what you've been told.
Incumbents leave fingerprints that you can easily find and identify. They're called a "voting record."

NONE of these people take credit for any of their failures.

While, for example, Sideshow Bobby Ferguson has a hair-trigger on his press release gun when he wins in Court, he remains strangely silent in the face of the tens of millions of taxpayer dollars he's lost in court in various cases... and he was involved in the cabal of billionaires who tried to strip the initiatives they hate off the ballot, behind closed, court room doors… and there are other cases that were equally disastrous for him politically. I haven't seen or heard of any of his glowingly self-flagellating efforts on the behalf of those loses.

You won't see his failures in campaign literature any more than you saw Sen. Ann Rivers taking credit for betraying us and ramming an unneeded, unwanted gas tax and tab fee increase down our collective throats after pledging, as a major part of her campaign to become a Senator to oppose both, claiming we "have to live within our means."

Candidates on both sides of the aisle generally do all they can to avoid specifics. Instead, we get what we call in the biz "glittering generalities" or "bright, shiny object" pledges.

"I support the 2nd Amendment" SOUNDS great. But the questions are both "how," and "what?"

HOW do you support the 2nd Amendment? What have you done in the past? What bills have you had signed into law, or stopped from being signed? What bills will YOU introduce to expand our rights?
And what happens when you try to nail candidates down on this issue and those related to it?

Most ignore you. At best they tell you as little as possible or, as in the case of both Perez and Harris, they outright lie to you.
The issue of abortion is one they routinely use to beat the hell out of the GOP.

What they claim is to put them back into office because THEY will return us to “nationwide abortion availability.”

They can no more do that than Kevin McCarthy, who was Speaker for a few minutes, pledged to get rid of the 87,000 IRS agent scam they ran.

No federal legislation can supersede a Supreme Court decision.
Dobbs made it clear abortion was a 10th Amendment issue. Any effort made by the Fed to remove that authority and assume it for themselves is DOA in the same court that got rid of abortion before.

Perez knows it. Harris knows it. But they can’t admit it. Neither have made any effort TO make abortion a “right” nationwide by a Constitutional Amendment… which both can be done and, in fact, is the ONLY way to arrive at the Narnia these two claim is RIGHT THERE, if you JUST KEEP US IN OFFICE!!!!

Which begs the issue: why haven’t they?

And when those reading this vote for either or both of those two, they have to do so KNOWING they are being lied to, to their faces. I did say we have the government we deserve or something, didn’t I?

You have many rights. But with rights comes responsibilities. And your responsibility is to get past voting merely because of a label of convenience. If an elected official has been a "fakir" in the past, they'll continue to do so in the future. Claiming to be either a democrat or a Republican is truly meaningless in the end.

Do not ignore their record. And do not buy into the "I'll do better next time" excuse.

When a pol promises the moon plus two dollars to get your vote, keep one hand on your wallet and the other covering your nether regions.

Politics is an outcome-based business. None of this "Well, I tried" nonsense like Herrera's miserable failure to get a bill passed that would have stopped tolling on paid for, completed structures; like the I-205 bridge.

In short, do the work. You still have time to make your decisions based on actual facts. Know what you're doing and why. Our obvious failure to hold politicians accountable for their actions... and lack of actions... is a major part of why we're as screwed up as a country as we are.

We do have the government we deserve. And what we have are the people you not only put there, they're the people we keep sending back.

And look what we, as a nation, have to show for it.

Just a quick reminder from 2017: Hold candidates accountable for their lies: the myth of the 20% Rule

A brief reminder from 2017 and Clark County Politics:

Saturday, June 10, 2017

The "support a candidate when you agree with them 80% of the time" rule.

The 80/20 commandment had a fundamental flaw: Frequently, the 20% you disagree with is far overarching over the 80% you do agree with.

For example, the GOP senate's betrayal of the people of this state happens around 5% of the time. But the issues they've betrayed us on... and are about to betray us on... are among the biggest political issues confronting us at the state level today.

We know what those issues are, so I won't repeat them here, but I would point out that if I agree with a politician 99% of the time, if that politician lied their way into office, dishonored us once they assumed office, ignores us while IN office... then I don't care what their claimed party affiliation is, I don't want them in office.

If that official disagrees with me on a fundamental principle, then I am going to oppose them: let's say, for example, that the 1% we disagree on is a constitutional right. Let's say, for example, that my Senator, who has proven she is not above lying or betraying her district, decides that she's going to support the efforts ongoing today to disarm us... even though, the REST of the time (as if) we were in complete agreement.

Should I just ignore that assault?

Let's say that I fought every day the CRC was alive and ultimately it died. Suddenly, one of the leaders of that effort has been bought out, Like Rivers has been bought out and so many others have been bought out... and she becomes instrumental in resurrecting that monster. If successful, her efforts will result in a giant sucking sound where the special interests she now works for are busy vacuuming hundreds of millions of dollars out of this county for the next 4 decades.

Should I just ignore that?

Should we ignore the reality of $700 million getting sucked out of this county because, for example, my Senator, who ran on a platform of opposing the largest gas tax/tab fees increases in this state's history was corrupted enough to ignore her pledge, made in writing, when the time came?

Am I to ignore that kind of corruption? Am I to continue to vote for someone who will lie to my face when the time comes? And how many more opportunities does she get to screw us?

I get that the 11th Commandment and 80/20 formula make nifty bumper stickers. But that we allow those running... or elected... to lie to us without consequence?

I don't think so.

The kicker, you see, is what's IN that 20% you suggest we should disregard. We're not talking about getting upset over, say, adding a fourth light to traffic signals or passing a state law making the Sasquatch the state animal (A waste of thousands of dollars... taxpayer dollars, I might add.)

We’re talking about major issues that have and will impact our lives negatively forever. We're talking about caving to the special interests that own too many of these people like the 13th Amendment was the 13th Suggestion on the issues that really, really, genuinely matter.

80/20 is an absolute. When I was working for the WSRP as executive director, one of the first things I learned was there are no absolutes. And when an elected official that I sweated for, funded, bled for putting up signs, stayed awake in the wee hours for, spent hundreds of hours to get and keep in office acts like none of those principles matter?

This goes beyond the issue of personal betrayal; after all, what's a decade in the overall scheme of things?

No, this is about the issue of accountability. When they lie, betray, sell out, ignore us?

Then they've got to go... and should never have been elected in the first place... 20% notwithstanding.