First, West’s nominating petitions were dropped off with state regulators by Lane Ruhland, former general counsel for the state GOP. More importantly, she is currently representing Trump’s re-election campaign in a federal lawsuit against a Rhinelander TV station.
J.M. McCoy of Wauwatosa is West’s elector for the state’s 5th Congressional District. McCoy could not be reached late Tuesday. But there is a J.M. McCoy from Wauwatosa who is a national committeeman for the Wisconsin Young Republicans.
West’s elector for the 3rd Congressional District is James Smith of Stoddard. That Smith has the same phone number and a previous address as James D. Smith, a 34-year-old former member of the La Crosse Republican Party who ran as a fake Democrat against now-Sen. Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, during the 2011 recall elections.
Other West electors are also strong supporters of Republicans. Virginia Pratt of Milwaukee once considered running for the state Senate as a Republican. Fred Krumberger of Suamico has donated nearly $3,000 to the Republican Party, its affiliates and GOP candidates in the past decade, according to state records.
Yeah, these aren’t a bunch of “Shake the system” people, these are dedicated Republican trying to fuck up the race for Biden. Only question is if they’re using Kanye towards that goal or working with Kanye towards that goal.
It’s a paywalled article so I can’t share it all but Political Wire has a piece that helps illustrate why the GOP is very interested in seeing Kanye get on the ballot. About Black voters under age 30, it says:
Among these younger voters, four in five say Donald Trump is a racist, he garners only 8 percent of their vote, and when asked for words to describe him, 90 percent were unambiguously negative. But that doesn’t translate to strong support for Biden: only 47 percent say they support him, and among the words they used to describe him, just 46 percent were positive with 23 percent neutral and 31 percent negative.
Younger African Americans want politicians to stand up on their behalf, and 78 percent say that support for the Black community is a reason for them to vote. But in practice they don’t see that support.
Not hard to see where Republicans would want a famous wealthy Black musician who can self-finance and talk about how neither party is on their side. It’s not as though Trump stands to lose any votes from that.
I hope Dave Chappelle and the other folks who went out to Kanye’s ranch to offer him support and friendship are following this; I don’t think they’re going to be happy when they find out their “friend” is a Trump stooge.
That’s a fair point. I guess the GOP has finally abandoned all conservative principles and has finally emerged as the party that wants to see the country burn.
The good thing about voting is that it’s voluntary. You don’t just do it because you’re bored; it requires taking time to go through the trouble of registering to vote, finding the polling place, standing in line, and voting. Kanye West will get some votes, but I tend to believe that most people who actually vote against Trump do so because they want him to lose. And most people who care enough to participate in the election do so knowing that Biden is the best way to make that happen.
I think Biden will carry whatever states he needs to with or without West’s candidacy. The one concern I do have is that it could make state-level results much closer than they need to be, and it adds another potential layer of confusion and doubt about the results.
The Trump campaign lawyer who submitted Kanye’s paperwork/signatures did so 90minutes after the deadline. I heard she had to call ahead to have someone unlock the doors and there’s timestamped video of her rushing into the courthouse.
I assume that’ll mean lawsuits challenging his being on the ballot.
(I’ve seen WI state offices rejecting bids for being five minutes late…)
There’s a lengthy list of Republicans working wth Kanye now to get him on the ballot. I think we can drop the “Poor Kanye” schtick – these people didn’t force themselves upon his “campaign” and make themselves his electors and agents.
A top Colorado GOP strategist is helping Kanye West to get on the ballot in her state, the latest in a series of Republicans who have stepped up to help the hip-hop star in his odd presidential bid.
Rachel George, a longtime Republican operative in Colorado, sent an email to at least one other local GOP strategist on Tuesday asking them to sign West’s Presidential Electors’ Acceptance of Nomination form so he can appear on the 2020 ballot in Colorado.
[…]
Republicans have watched giddily as West weighed a potential 2020 bid, hoping he might draw crucial votes away from Biden and boost President Trump’s reelection chances. In recent days, there’s been mounting evidence of a coordinated effort by GOP operatives, some with ties to the Trump campaign, to make sure that West does qualify in key swing states.
…the billionaire rap superstar indicated, in an interview by text today, that he was in fact running to siphon votes from the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden.
Asked about that directly, West said that rather than running for president, he was “walking,” quickly adding that he was “walking . . . to win.”
When it was pointed out that he actually can’t win in 2020—that he won’t be on enough ballots to yield 270 electoral votes, and that a write-in campaign isn’t feasible—and thus was serving as a spoiler, West replied: “I’m not going to argue with you. Jesus is King.”
[…]
However, he was reticent to criticize Trump besides that. “Trump is the closest president we’ve had in years to allowing God to still be part of the conversation,” he said.
And West was eager to criticize Biden, and expressed comfort with the idea of doing damage to the former vice president’s White House chances. “I’m not denying it; I just told you.”
No need for worry about his mental state; just another Trump buddy intentionally working to ratfuck the system
I never felt sorry for Kanye West. He made billions of dollars with ‘talent’ I don’t really appreciate in the first place. His real ‘talent’ was marrying into the most attention-whoring family on earth in the Kardashians.
The GOP propping this dude up like the dead guy in Weekend at Bernie’s, for no other reason than to divert some of the Biden voters away, is disgusting.
So my question is - will Candidate-Kanye ever be required to go in front of the media and face questions during his “I’mma run for President” circus act?
In my head, I’m praying for the possibility of a Nicolle Wallace, or a Rachel Maddow, or a Chris Wallace going scorched-earth on his dumb ass in a 30-minute televised 1-on-1 (something like this week’s iconic Swan-vs-Trump Axios interview), and Kanye just taking out his earpiece, saying “screw this, it ain’t worth my time or embarrassment” and taking his ball and going home?
I guess we’ve thrown every “norm” out the window since 2016, but does Kanye ever have to face legit public questions like “you’re running for President – if elected, how would you address the unemployment rate, or the Coronavirus?”
Or can he just “hang out in a bunker” indefinitely, not doing shit, and see what states petition enough signatures to put him on the ballot? With nothing to lose, including his dignity and/or reputation?
Jfc. Why can’t we go back to having nice things, like a President who gets excoriated because he salutes with a coffee cup in his hand, or because he wears a tan suit.
So, the lawyer that was spotted hand-delivered Kanye’s nominating petitions in Madison Wisconsin, Lane Ruhland, is the former general council for the Wisconsin GOP. Further, she had her name on legal briefs filed on behalf of the Trump campaign as recently as July 27th.
Man, absolutely nothing shocks me any more. I think we all knew the GOP was propping up Kanye’s ‘candidacy’, so this should not come as a surprise to too many of us. It does get tiresome to continuously have my worst fears and suspicions proven, though.