Republican candidate loses, goes completely bonkers
Who knew that insanity was contagious? Apparently, if you are of the Republican persuasion, you can easily catch this disease. Florida seems to spawn more insane Republicans than others, and Jason Mariner reenforces that. Business Insider (“BI”) and CBS Miami (“CBS”) reported that Mariner lost Florida’s 20th District special election House race by more than 59 percentage points, yet he refuses to concede.
The victor in this race, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick is a progressive Democrat who ran in a heavily Democratic district. Common sense said that she was a shoo-in. The race was called for her once it became apparent that Mariner had no mathematical path to victory. After the race, Mariner said: “Now they called the race, I did not win, so they say, but that does not mean that they lost either, it does not mean that we lost.” Uh, 59 percentage points not only says Mariner lost but lost “bigly.” That apparently did not deter Mariner, as he claims “irregularities” in the district. What is wrong with this man? He had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning from the beginning. Is he seriously trying to say that enough “irregularities” occurred to cause him to lose this badly? BI reported that before the polls even closed, Mariner had filed a lawsuit claiming “ballot issues” in Broward and Palm Beach counties, both of which are heavily Democratic. Why in the world does he think any of those people voted for him?
Speaking with CBS, Cherfilus-McCormick said that Mariner is not her first “sour grapes” opponent. When Cherfilus-McCormick won the Democratic primary, her opponent, Dale Holness, filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate her victory. His lawsuit claimed that Cherfilus-McCormick’s advocacy for universal basic income “was tantamount to bribing voters.” These people validate the fact that anyone can file a lawsuit at any time for any ridiculous reason. That does not mean they will prevail. All they do is clog up the courts’ dockets, taking away time from real lawsuits. This behavior is simply more of the crap started by Donald Trump. Mariner lost to a Democrat in a district where Democrats outnumber Republicans 5 to 1. Duh. What did he expect to happen?
Because Trump successfully tricked some people into believing his false claims of a “rigged election,” the rest of these nuts think it will work for them as well. They have taken the opportunity to rewrite voting laws, hoping to prevent the massive turnout we saw in 2020. Instead of coming up with ideas that appeal to the American public, Republicans act crazy and lie, leading to the numerous voter suppression bills that have been passed since the 2020 election. We, therefore, desperately need to pass voting rights on the federal level. Those laws would override the bills Republican legislatures have been passing to restrict our right to vote. They fear voters in record numbers, and instead of finding a way to appeal to those record numbers, they choose to suppress them. Republicans are crazy, but we no longer have the luxury of just ignoring them.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years