Order of the Ephors – Can the Republic be saved?

On Friday, March 12, 2021, Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) addressed the people of New York in a nationally broadcast tele-conference.  The governor requested the airtime so that he could respond to published reports that he had made unwanted sexual advances on six young women over a period of several years. 

However, as the governor relaxed in the executive mansion, working up the courage to present an in-your-face proposition to the people of New York, an aide approached him and whispered, “Sir, we’ve just learned that another charge has been made against you.  There are now seven young women who have charged you with inappropriate sexual advances.”

The governor was taken aback.  He must have thought, “Let’s get this show on the road!!  If we wait another ten minutes we may be dealing with ten or twelve disgruntled females.”   

After a preview of the major items of state business that will command his attention in the weeks ahead, the governor turned to the question of the sexual harassment charges that have been made against him. 

He said, “I did not do what was alleged, period.  I won’t speculate about people’s possible motives, but I can tell you, as a former attorney general who’s gone through this situation many times, there are often many motivations for making an allegation, and that is why you need to know the facts before you make a decision.  Politicians who don’t know a single fact, but yet form a conclusion and then opinion are, in my opinion, reckless and dangerous.

“The people of New York should not have confidence in a politician who takes a position without knowing any facts or substance.  That, my friends, is politics at its worst.  Do I think it is responsible to take a position on a serious allegation before you have any facts?  No, I don’t think it is responsible.  People know the difference between playing politics, bowing to cancel culture and the truth.  Let the review proceed.  I’m not going to resign.  I was not elected by the politicians.  I was elected by the people.  Part of this is that I am not part of the political club, and you know what?  I’m proud of it.”

Yes, it is true.  Andrew Cuomo is not a member of the “club,” and for a very good reason.  Cuomo was born on December 6, 1957 and had his first exposure to the world of New York machine politics in 1972, at age fifteen, when his father, Mario Cuomo, ran for lieutenant governor.  His father lost his first political race but was appointed to the position of New York secretary of state.  In the ensuing twenty-two years, the senior Cuomo ran for secretary of state, lieutenant governor, mayor of New York, and governor.  He was narrowly defeated twice in his mayoral campaigns but served three full terms (1983-95) as governor.

Through all those years, Andrew was close by his side, planning and scheming, intimately involved in all the nuances of Empire State politics.  Throughout his father’s three terms as governor, the two worked closely in tandem to advance their legislative agenda, with the senior Cuomo assuming the role of “good guy” and his son playing the role of “bad guy” in a good cop/bad cop scenario.  Neither of the Cuomos made a lot of friends; both made a substantial number of enemies.

Then, in 1993, the younger Cuomo launched his own political career when Bill Clinton called him to Washington and made him Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.  Four years later, as Clinton began his second term, Cuomo moved up to the corner office, assuming the role of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.  He later served one term as New York Attorney General before winning the first of three gubernatorial terms in 2010.

Andrew Cuomo’s years as his father’s “enforcer” in the bare-knuckled world of New York Democratic politics has made him the man he is today.  We should not be surprised to learn that, in the 1976 New York City mayoral runoff campaign against Ed Koch, all niceties aside, politically incorrect campaign placards appeared around the city, urging New Yorkers to “Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo.”

The only kind of politics that Andrew Cuomo knows is the “no holds barred” variety.  He’s never been exposed to the “gentler” brand of politics, so when he says he is not a member of the “club” and that he will not resign, no matter how much opposition is generated against him, we should believe him… and, from a Republican standpoint, we should urge him to fight on and to cling tenaciously to the reins of power for as long as he can.

Why?  Because it is in the best interests of Republicans to keep Cuomo’s sexual harassment demons and his Covid-19 scandal alive for as long as possible.  Listening to the questions posed by the brightest stars of the mainstream media on the Sunday morning talk shows, one wonders how the shallowness of their thinking ever allowed them to graduate from J-school.

Over and over again, they ask, “Now that Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Kirstin Gillibrand have demanded that Cuomo resign, how long do you think it will be before President Biden asks him to step aside?”

Have they not been paying attention?  Are they totally unaware that the one Democratic leader who has a more severe sexual assault problem than Andrew Cuomo is… Joe Biden??  The major difference between Andrew Cuomo’s sexual advances and those of Joe Biden is the fact that many of Biden’s improper advances have been captured electronically.  The videos are posted on the Internet for all to see.

For example, on January 5, 2011, then-Vice President Joe Biden groped the breast of an 11-year-old girl for at least fifteen seconds during a televised swearing-in ceremony for her father, Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO).  As the C-Span cameras recorded the event, Biden cupped her left breast with his left hand, telling her, “Don’t date ‘til you’re thirty.”
 
In 2014, Biden traveled to Las Vegas to campaign for Lucy Flores, the Democratic candidate for Lt. Gov. of Nevada.  Flores later complained that, before she took the stage, she felt the vice president get close to her, from behind, lean in, and “inhale her hair.”  She went on to say that he then proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of her head.  Flores said she felt “powerless to do anything about it.  My brain couldn’t process what was happening.  I was embarrassed.  I was shocked.  I was confused.  He made me feel uneasy, gross.”

On February 17, 2015, as newly-sworn Defense Secretary Ashe Carter addressed a crowd of well-wishers in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, Joe Biden stood behind his wife, Stephanie, placed his hands on her shoulders, put his face close against the side of her head, and whispered in her ear.  From the pained expression on her face, as recoded by the television cameras, it was clear that she was not pleased with his unwanted attention.

More recently, a former Biden senate staffer, Tara Reade, has filed a complaint with the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police.  In her complaint, Reade alleges that, at some time during the early ‘90s, Biden assaulted her in the basement of a senate office building.  In an interview with National Public Radio, Reade said that the assault happened when she was asked by a senior Biden aide to deliver a bag to him as he made his way to the Capitol.

Reade recalls that, when she approached Biden, he pinned her against a wall, reached under her skirt, and penetrated her with his fingers.  When he asked if she “wanted to go somewhere else,” she pulled away from him.  He then shook his finger at her and said, angrily, “You’re nothing to me!  Nothing!”

So, is it even remotely possible that Biden, being highly sensitive to his own reputation for sexual abuse and harassment against women and young girls, would gamble that Andrew Cuomo would decline to retaliate if “thrown under the bus” by Biden?  Not likely.  Biden is not known to be either exceptionally courageous or a high-stakes gambler.   

The answer to our question came on Sunday afternoon, March 14, as Biden made his way across the south lawn of the White House toward the Marine One helicopter.  When asked whether he agreed with other Democrats calling for Cuomo’s immediate resignation, Biden said, “I think the investigation is underway and we should see what it brings us.”  He was not about to challenge a man with a mean streak as wide as Cuomo’s to a game of political “chicken.”

So the question arises, how will this game of high-stakes political gamesmanship end?  Will Cuomo eventually swallow his pride, offer his resignation, and head for a life of ease on a sun-swept Caribbean island?  Or will he take a page from books written by Bill Clinton and Virginia governor Ralph Northam and just ride it out?  My guess is that he will choose the latter course, even if it involves an impeachment trial.  If he does, then Republicans will have the pleasure of sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the sexual assault scandals to wrap themselves around both Andrew Cuomo and the guy who stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump.  Either way, it will make for great political theater.  So, hang in there, Guv!!

Paul R. Hollrah is a retired government relations executive and a two-time member of the U.S. Electoral College.  He currently lives and writes among the hills and lakes of northeast Oklahoma’s Green Country.

Once upon a time in America, there lived a very large group of people who had only one thing in common; they did not play well with others.  They were called Democrats.  They were evil and extremely power-hungry, and they could never be counted upon to play by the rules of the game.

But then, on June 16, 2015, a “golden knight” with long, flowing tresses descended an escalator in the lobby of his towering headquarters in mid-town Manhattan.  He was accompanied by his beautiful Slovenian-born wife, a famed fashion model named Melania.  His name was Donald J. Trump and he had come to save us from the political and economic excesses of the Democrats.

Approaching a microphone, he launched into a long recitation of the myriad problems we face as a nation.  He proclaimed, “It is time to take our country in a bold new direction.  It is time to get Americans back to work… That is why today I am declaring my candidacy for President.”

He concluded by saying, “Quite simply, it is time to bring real leadership to Washington… The fact is, the American Dream is dead – but if I win, I will bring it back bigger, and better, and stronger than ever before.  Together we will Make America Great Again!”

It was a seminal moment in American political history. 

In the months that followed, Trump slugged and insulted his way through a crowded field of Republican primary candidates.  And when the gavel fell at the close of the 2016 Republican nominating convention, he found himself as the Republican Party nominee for president of the United States.  As an outsider, a non-politician from the business world, his campaign style was, at best, unorthodox.  He was crass, vulgar, and totally lacking in eloquence or political acumen.  He never seemed to know what to say or what not to say, and every time he opened his mouth to speak, even those among his most avid supporters held their collective breath.

Democrats, meanwhile, were being Democrats.  After a painful and unexpected loss to Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primaries, former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton was finally able to capture her most coveted prize, the Democratic Party’s 2016 nomination for president of the United States.  Longtime political professionals were confounded.  Republican pros were convinced that Democrats had nominated their worst possible candidate, while Democrats were likewise convinced that the Republicans had done the same.  If nothing else, the 2016 General Election campaign promised to be a race to the bottom of the polemic barrel.                                                                                

However, being a man not known for his coachability, Trump decided to “just be Trump.”  But Clinton and her Democratic co-conspirators were taking no chances.  They launched an all-out effort to destroy Trump by any means necessary, preferably by infiltrating his campaign and convincing the American people that he was a Russian agent who took his marching orders from Russian president Vladimir Putin.

It was a plot so bizarre that it could only be implemented by enlisting the participation of the party’s most powerful operatives.  The co-conspirators included the President and Vice President, the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the CIA, the Director of the FBI, and the White House national security advisor, along with a substantial number of second level executives from each of the federal law enforcement agencies. 

Under normal circumstances, their master strategy might have borne fruit.  But they could not have known that, on Oct. 28, 2016, just 11 days before the Nov. 8 election, the FBI director would send a letter to Congress announcing the reopening of the investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified documents during her tenure as secretary of state.  The Clinton campaign was unable to repair the damage in that short period of time and on November 8, 2016, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.

Clinton was thrown into a thunderous rage.  Reports from those present in her hotel suite described a violent rage in which she threw objects against a wall while hurling profane insults at senior staff members.  She even went so far as to refer to the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, a black woman with an afro hairdo, as a “brain-dead buffalo.”

Days later, when Clinton had regained her composure, she was more determined than ever to sabotage the Trump presidency and to destroy Trump in the process.  In their efforts to infiltrate the Trump campaign, they conspired to obtain three Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants from the FISA court.  To do so, it became necessary to provide the secret court with supporting documentation that they knew to be false and/or unsubstantiated… all of it attested to, feloniously, by top officials of the Justice Department and the FBI.

A second element of their plan was to arrange for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate charges of Russian interference in the 2020 presidential campaign, and then tie those efforts to Donald Trump.  Former FBI director Robert Mueller headed the investigation, aided by a staff of eighteen hand-picked attorneys… thirteen of whom were known to be Democrats and unfriendly to Donald Trump.  The investigators completed their work some two years later, in March 2019, having found no evidence of collaboration between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives… just in time for the beginning of Trumps 2020 reelection campaign.  

At their 2020 nominating convention in Milwaukee, Democrats chose former vice president Joe Biden, of Delaware, as their candidate for president.  It would be Biden’s third attempt at winning the nomination.  His first attempt, in 1988, ended abruptly when he was charged with plagiarizing a speech by British parliamentarian Neil Kinnock.  In his second attempt, in 2008, he had trouble raising money and was never able to rise above single digits in the presidential preference polls.  However, when Barack Obama won the 2008 Democratic nomination, defeating both Biden and Hillary Clinton, he chose Biden as his running mate.  Thus, Biden’s eight years as vice president served as his stepping-stone to the 2020 nomination. 

During the 2020 campaign, Trump ran on the simple, but effective, theme of “Promises Made – Promises Kept.”  During his term in the White House, Trump fulfilled more campaign promises than any previous president.  Among his major accomplishments were unprecedented economic growth, tax relief for the middle class, massive regulatory reform, renegotiation of international trade agreements, energy independence, response to the Covid-19 pandemic, appointment of conservatives to the federal bench, security of the country’s southern border, Middle East peace agreements, rebuilding the U.S. military, and reformation of the Department of Veterans Affairs.   

His energetic campaign schedule was one that would have defeated a man one-fourth his age, but he clearly relished the energy he drew from the immense crowds he attracted in rally after rally… sometimes as many as four in a single day.  

Biden, on the other hand, after making his acceptance speech in Milwaukee, flew back to Delaware and hid out in the basement of his home for the entire campaign.  He made no major campaign appearances, and when he did he appeared to be not totally in control of his faculties.  Rumors circulated that he was well into the early stages of Alzheimer’s.  To even the most casual observer, it appeared that Trump was destined to win a second term in a landslide.

However, Democrats were unconcerned.  Although Trump was able to demonstrate conclusively that he had earned the right to a second term, while Biden appeared unwilling to plead his case before the American people, Democrats knew that the outcome of the election was never in doubt.  The February 15 edition of Time Magazine contained a 27-page report titled, “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.”

The article described in minute detail how a large network of left-wing conspirators arranged the outcome of the election.  They freely admitted that “They got states to change voting systems and laws (illegally and unconstitutionally) and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding.”  The authors attempted to minimize the crime of the co-conspirators, saying, “They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it (emphasis added).”  

However, as that band of conspirators worked day and night to rig the election in Biden’s favor, we were learning some very interesting things about Biden and his family.  For example, while it is no secret that Biden has a reputation for caressing, nuzzling, and sniffing the hair of women and girls during televised White House ceremonies, it was interesting to learn that Biden was accused of sexually assaulting a former senate staffer, Tara Reade.

It was also learned that, during Biden’s tenure as vice president, Barack Obama had named him the primary contact for China and Ukraine.  During that period, it was not unusual for Biden to have his son, Hunter, accompany him as a passenger on Air Force 2 during trips to Beijing and Kiev… excursions that proved very profitable for the younger Biden.

On one such trip to Beijing, Hunter Biden obtained a $1.5 billion “loan” as capitalization for a joint venture private lending corporation.  On yet another trip to Kiev, he was named to the board of directors of Burisma, a major Ukrainian natural gas producer with a less-than-sterling reputation, at a reported salary of $80,000 per month.  Clearly, none of those development would have occurred had his father not been vice president of the United States.

And while Joe Biden has insisted that he and his son have never discussed his son’s business ventures, there is much eye-witness testimony to the contrary.  In fact, a video clip has circulated on American television in which the former vice president is seen boasting that he forced the president of Ukraine to fire a federal prosecutor who was investigating Burisma, the company on whose board Hunter Biden served.  As Biden related the story, he told the Ukrainians that they had just six hours to fire the prosecutor.  If they failed to do so, he would see to it that Ukraine would not receive a $1 billion foreign aid loan that had been approved by the U.S. Congress… an impeachable offense that defines the term “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

However, the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, followed just two weeks later by the Biden inaugural ceremony, tended to divert attention away from the Biden corruption and sexual harassment stories.  Instead, the political corruption scene shifted to Albany, New York, where the Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, is under attack from all sides.  In addition to being blamed for the avoidable Covid-19 deaths of some 15,000 elderly nursing home residents, Cuomo faces ugly sexual harassment charges by three young women. 

But Cuomo’s difficulties are insignificant in the story line of our 2021 fairy tale.  What is significant is the fact that Cuomo’s offenses and his potential impeachment are almost certain to shine new light on Joe Biden’s corrupt dealings and his long history of sexual harassment whenever the Covid-19 pandemic begins to fade from the headlines.

As matters now stand, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris enjoy a 306 to 232 vote lead over Donald Trump and Mike Pence in the 2020 Electoral College tally.  However, what happens in the months ahead when Joe Biden’s high crimes and misdemeanors become headline news and his physical and mental capabilities becomes a major issue?  His crimes are such that he could easily be forced to resign, if not impeached.

However, should the Republican controlled state legislatures then pursue in the courts what they know to be fraudulent vote tallies in the November General Election… e.g., Republicans in the Pennsylvania legislature have found that the number of votes cast in Pennsylvania exceeded the total number of registered voters in the commonwealth by 170,830 votes… the federal courts could strip Biden-Harris of Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, reducing their electoral vote count to 286 votes.  And when the courts strip Georgia’s 16 electoral votes from Biden-Harris because some 66,247 seventeen-year-olds were allowed to vote in that state, the Biden-Harris total will be reduced to 270 electoral votes.  When they lose just one more electoral vote, they will fall below the 270 votes necessary to be elected president and vice president.

At that point, the Constitution requires that the election be sent to the House of Representatives where each state is allowed just one vote, no matter how many members are in each state delegation.  In that event, Republicans hold a majority in 27 state delegations while Democrats hold a majority in just 20 states.

So, a hearty welcome to President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.  Could it happen?  You bet!  Anyone who has lived through the first twenty years of the 21^st century would be wise not to bet against it.  And may we all live happily ever after.   

Paul R. Hollrah is a retired government relations executive and a two-time member of the U.S. Electoral College.  He currently lives and writes among the hills and lakes of northeast Oklahoma’s Green Country

[PRH1] .

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 [PRH1]

To paraphrase my late great mother-in-law, “It’s simply impossible to embarrass a Democrat.”

To prove her thesis, one need only look to the widespread fraud utilized by Democrats in seizing control of the White House and both houses of Congress in the 2020 General Election.  Although former vice president Joe Biden announced in October 2020 that “we have put together, I think, the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics,” bemused Republicans saw his remark as just another Biden gaffe, while the average man on the street apparently saw the Democrats’ fraud-friendly developments as mere conveniences for voters who lacked the time or the patience to stand in long lines at polling places.

For those who were so convinced, allow me to assure you that “personal convenience” is not what Democrats had in mind when they launched their multi-faceted effort to steal the 2020 General Election.  The destructive nature of Alpine avalanches and Indonesian tsunamis pale in comparison to the determination exhibited by a group of Democrats intent upon stealing an election. There is literally no more dangerous place on the face of the Earth than to stand in the way of a Democrat with a handful of bogus ballots, rushing toward the nearest ballot box.

Now, in the early days of the 117^th Congress, congressional Democrats are making yet another bold attempt at insuring permanent political control over all three branches of government.  Euphemistically titled, the “For the People Act of 2021,” (the legislation is more aptly titled, “For the Democrats Act of 2021”), H.R. 1 contains little, if anything, that would benefit anyone but a partisan Democrat.  If enacted, the new law would:

• Mandate the availability of on-line registration.
• Ban the requirement for voters to provide a full SSN when registering to vote.
• Impose a “motor voter” registration requirement on all states.
• Require states to reduce voter registration age from eighteen to sixteen.
• Require all states to implement a “same-day” registration program for new voters.
• Provide grants to states for the purpose of increasing involvement of sixteen and seventeen-year-olds in election activities.
• Reserve the right to challenge an individual’s eligibility to register and to vote only to state and local election officials with personal knowledge of a voter’s eligibility.
• Require states to notify, in writing, all those citizens previously convicted of criminal offenses of their right to register and vote.
• Require states to establish “early voting” periods prior to Election Day.
• Prohibit states from imposing additional restrictions on a voter’s right to utilize an absentee ballot to vote by mail. 
• Prohibit states from requiring voters to provide any form of identification, other than a signature, when applying for an absentee ballot.
• Prohibit states from requiring notarization of absentee ballot applications.
• Permit voters to designate any other person to return a voted and sealed absentee ballot to an officially designated ballot collection point.
• Prohibit states from placing any limit on the number of absentee ballots another person may collect and return to an officially designated ballot collection point.
• Prohibit persons who are selected to return absentee ballots from receiving any form of compensation based on the number of ballots collected and returned.
• Require states to allow in-person voting by individuals who do not possess a photo ID, but who are willing to sign a sworn statement, under penalty of perjury, attesting to their identity and eligibility to vote.

The fraudulent and extralegal excesses of the 2020 General Election that resulted in Democrats winning the White House and both houses of Congress are essentially all codified within the provisions of H.R. 1.  And although they are seriously victimized by fraudulent practices in every election, congressional Republicans appear to be blithely indifferent to ceaseless efforts by Democrats to liberalize and destabilize the electoral process.  Although elections are generally a matter of state law, a comprehensive election reform law targeting federal elections would supersede state law.  A comprehensive election reform bill… one that would resolve most of the shortcomings of the present system… would include the following reforms:

1. Voter registration must be done only in person.  Fraud-friendly motor-voter, postcard, Internet, and same-day registration schemes must be either repealed or superseded.  In same-day registration states, Democrats have recruited teams of college students to travel from precinct to precinct, registering to vote and voting numerous times in the same day.
   
2. Registrations must be done only by full-time registrars, employees of counties and/or
   township government, and only in the state, county, and/or township in which the
   registrant maintains his/her primary residence.  Third party registrars, paid and unpaid,
   must be prohibited.
    
3. As a requisite for voter registration, each voter should be required to show proof of citizenship (birth certificate or passport) and proof of residence (driver’s license, residential deed, apartment lease, utility bills, etc.).
   
4. Before voting, each voter must show an official government-issued photo ID (driver’s license, passport, etc.), or an official state-issued voter registration card complete with name, home address, Social Security number, and precinct number.  As an alternative, and as a means of preventing voters from voting more than once in a single election, states may require voters to dip a finger into a vial of indelible ink after voting.
   
5. Court administrators must be required to furnish local election boards with name, address, date of birth, and Social Security number of every individual convicted of a felony.  County Coroners must be required to furnish election boards with copies of all death certificates.  Election boards must be required to purge voter registrations rolls of all felons and all deceased persons at least ten days prior to any election. 
   
6. Registered voters who move from one state to another, from one county or township to another, or from one precinct to another, must be required to obtain voter registration transfer documents from their local election board.  This document must be presented, in person, to voter registrars of the voter’s new place of residence.
   
7. Absentee ballots must be received no later than ten days prior to an election.  Absentee ballots, other than those of overseas military personnel, must be tallied no later than the day and hour that polls close in any election.  Absentee ballots completed by residents of hospitals, nursing homes, elder care, and mental health facilities must be completed only in the presence of representatives of both major political parties
   
8. Other than absentee ballots, voting must be done in person, only on the day of the election, and only in the precinct in which the voter maintains his/her primary place of residence.  Electronic voting and vote-by-mail schemes must be repealed or superseded.  Provisional ballots must be limited only to the most serious instances of clerical error by election board officials.
   
9. The Voting Rights Act must be amended to provide fines and mandatory jail sentences for any individual who would, in any election in which the name of a candidate for federal office appears on the ballot, do any of the following:
   
   1. Vote in the name of another person.
   2. Vote or attempt to vote more than once in any election.
   3. Vote in the name of a deceased or fictitious person.
   4. Vote in more than one state or political subdivision.
   5. Vote without benefit of U.S. citizenship.
   6. Intimidate, interfere with, or cause injury to the person or property of any other person peaceably engaged in the political process, or
   7. Cause any other person to do any of the foregoing.  

The leadership ranks of the Republican Party contain far too many Deep State RINOs and “Never-Trump” whiners who live by the credo, “We’ll get ‘em next time.”  Unfortunately, the faith of the American people in our ability to conduct free and honest elections has been so thoroughly shattered that the reforms proposed by Republicans and by Democrats tend to be diametrically opposed to each other.  Democrats insist on continued liberalization that benefits only their party and candidates, while Republicans insist on reforms that serve to simplify the electoral process and to eliminate opportunities for fraud and mismanagement.    

The endless cycle of liberalization of our election laws must end because we are now at a point in our nation’s history when we are seriously confronted by the proposition that, unless we are able to reestablish the voters’ faith in our electoral processes, there may not be a “next time.”

Democrats have always played a no-holds-barred game in which losing was not an option, no matter what they had to do to win.  It’s time we Republicans field a team that not only understands the game we’re playing, but a team that stays on the playing field until we’ve imposed our will on the other side.  The alternative is simply unthinkable.    

Paul R. Hollrah is a native of Missouri, a retired government relations executive, and a two-time member of the U.S. Electoral College.  He currently lives and writes among the hills and lakes of northeast Oklahoma’s Green Country.