There’s a reason “primary opponents” is in quotation marks there.
I already wrote up Bill Weld’s ridiculous quest, so it comes as no surprise that a ridiculous failed politician whose campaign is being run by his stepson is this inept.
The Weld 2020 campaign site features an old photo and raw video of his campaign announcement. It’s early July and the latest update on the site is from the beginning of May. That’s incompetence as usual in the hopeless campaign by the former Massachusetts governor which is being run by his stepson.
The Never Trumper competing against President Trump for the 2020 GOP nomination claimed back in March that he could “start Monday in the Oval Office.” Three months later, he barely has a website.
Back then, Weld dismissed talk of Trump’s popularity by saying that, “six months is forever in national politics”. That’s true. But no amount of forevers would allow the former Libertarian VP to beat Trump. An Emerson poll in February, before the beginning of his campaign, showed Weld polling at 15% against Trump. After a month of campaigning, the USA Today poll in June dropped Weld down to 5%.
There’s lots more comedy material where that came from. You’ll be shocked to learn that Weld isn’t technically running against Trump.
With the start of primary season just weeks away, Trump rivals Joe Walsh and Bill Weld are ceding an array of key battlegrounds. Walsh won’t be competing in more than half of the 30 states and territories whose filing deadlines have already passed, while Weld won’t be contending 12 of them. The latest blow came Wednesday, when the two missed the deadline to make the Virginia ballot, making Trump the sole contender.
It’s the latest reminder of Trump’s vice-like grip on the GOP — and how any hint of opposition within the party has been extinguished.
Or you know, the incompetence of his supposed challengers.
Walsh and Weld have complained bitterly that several states have scrapped their primaries, calling it undemocratic and part of a broader effort to rig the nominating contest in Trump’s favor. Yet the challengers are missing out on opportunities to compete against the president, even in states where it’s relatively easy to qualify.
Neither Walsh nor Weld will be running in Kentucky, where candidates can qualify simply by paying $1,000, filling out a statement of candidacy form, and proving that they’re on the ballot in 20 other states. Walsh failed to get on the ballot in Louisiana, where it costs just $1,125. Weld won’t be running in Oklahoma, where a presidential aspirant only needs to cut a $5,000 check.
The two are also MIA in some of the country’s most delegate-rich battlegrounds. While Walsh, a former congressman, didn’t file in his home state of Illinois, Weld’s attempt to get on the Ohio ballot was rejected by election officials who said he didn’t meet the state’s requirements.
That assumes that they really wanted to run, rather than to be seen as running.
One of the common political scams on both sides of the aisle is to file to run against a controversial candidate from the opposing party, without having any serious plan to actually beat them, in a district that is either solidly blue or red anyway.
And then just run some ads and collect the donations while promising to defeat say, Devin Nunes or Maxine Waters, or whoever is really in the news right now and whose name can be used to rack up hate donations, etc..
That’s not to say every longshot candidate is grifting. But when you keep talking about running against President Trump, but you can’t be bothered to write a 5K check to get on the ballot on Oklahoma, what do you call that?
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