Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio.
At the end of the second hour, Carmichael weighed in on the House race in Upstate New York between Claudia Tenney and Anthony Brindisi and remarked at how the Republican Party has become more diverse and destined to change.
Leahy: In the studio with me and the original all-star panelists Crom Carmichael. Crom, you know, it’s 20 days after the election and a number of races still have not been called. Let’s look at some House races. If you look at the breakdown according to this all but three have been finalized its 222 for the Democrats to 10 for the Republican’s gain of at least 10 perhaps more for the Republicans.
But I used to live in Upstate New York in Madison County, which is right at the center. It’s one of eight counties in the 22nd congressional district. In 2016 the Republican Claudia Tenney won that race narrowly against Anthony Brindisi. In a rematch in 2018. He won by 3,000 votes. Rematch again 2020. I’ll read this from Syracuse.com.
Brindisi-Tenney House race shrouded in secrecy confusion as campaigns battle over ballots. Central New Yorkers who voted in one of the most competitive House races in the nation still don’t know the results 20 days after the election whether their vote counted since the polls closed on November 3rd the 22nd congressional district election between representative Anthony Brindisi and former representative Claudia Tenney. It has been shrouded in secrecy as lawyers for the campaigns fight behind the scenes over hundreds of absentee ballots that could tip the election.
So the vote count right now, Tenney leads Brindisi by 300 votes out of more than 300,000 votes that have been cast. But 60,000 absentee ballots have been returned. 55,000 have been counted. There are 5,000 absentee ballots to be counted. absentee ballots almost always go to…Wait for it. Wait for it…the Democrats. What does this tell you, Crom?
Carmichael: Well, you know, they had a primary in New York that the judge finally had to throw up our hands because there’s two Democrats and the primary try to cheat against each other. (Leahy laughs) Now how many votes have been cast so far? I’m curious.
Leahy: 312,000.
Carmichael: 312,000. Okay. Now I’m going to take that and multiply that times time 435 and 135 million. That would be a percentage. If you have 435 House seats equally divided from a population standpoint. It would be interesting to know compared to other congressional districts how many you know where that stands in terms of the number of total votes cast.
But the primary vote the dimmer of the judge finally throughout all of the votes that came in after a certain date. And so you have a court case in New York that should matter in this particular race because you have a New York judge that said according to New York law here is the law. And that was on a primary. So you would think that the same thing would apply.
Leahy: So the way it works in New York and perhaps one of the reasons why I left many years ago. I left when I was 18 and didn’t look back in part because you could get a sense that New York was so encumbered by rules and regulation and an overreaching government that it would be difficult to be a business guy there. But in New York state every county sets its own rules about election law. And when there is a dispute it goes to court. There are eight counties there.
Broome County, Chenango County, Cortland County, Madison County where I used to live, and several others. And they’re all involved in disputes and so judges are going to determine as was the case in that primary the winner of this case. Right now with 300 votes separating the two and the Republican leading but with 6,000 absentee ballots not counted, you know, I would say it doesn’t look good for the Republican.
Carmichael: This is two weeks later.
Leahy: How can they not be counted?
Carmichael: How can they not had been counted? (Leahy chuckles) And I mean I can answer my own question because these are absentee ballots that had just only recently shown up. That is the nature of mail-in voting.
Leahy: Yeah, mail-in voting is just ripe for fraud.
Carmichael: Yeah it is and anyone who disagrees with that is either ignorant or knows it knows that it’s a great way to have fraud. You know, they say well look how Washington State and Oregon, how great they are.
Leahy: They’ve done vote for by mail for some time.
Carmichael: Yeah, but look at the politicians they elect.
Leahy: Democrats.
Carmichael: Also crazy left Democrats. So you have no idea whether mail-in voting now has gotten to be so so cleverly disguised out there that this is just the way it goes or whether or not it’s legit. You just don’t know. But what you do know is from Washington and Oregon they both said it took them 10 years to correct all the anomalies that they found. Let me switch gears to a couple of other races. Do you remember the doctor?
Trump’s first doctor? Dr. Ronny Jackson. You know, he was also Obama’s doctor. So the press assumed I think that Ronny Jackson would come forth after President Trump’s first physical and proclaim him physically incapable of holding office. (Leahy laughs) And Ronny Jackson surprised the press and said that he was in great health and that he would probably outlive most of the people in that room more or less. Ronny Jackson was then somehow chased out of Washington and he’s now coming back to Washington as a congressman.
Leahy: Well, congratulations. Which state is he coming from?
Carmichael: Texas. But there’s another there’s there are a number of women and minority candidates as a who won for the first time as Republicans. One is a guy named Byron Donalds and he won the 19th, Florida congressional district. Now Byron Donalds has an enormous smile. But his arms are as big as my thighs. This is a very big well-built man. And he says he looks forward to being a counterweight to Ocasio-Cortez.Â
Leahy: Interesting. So he’s a weight lifter type of guy?
Carmichael: He probably did play if you didn’t play football but if he didn’t play football some coach is crying somewhere. (Leahy laughs) He absolutely thinks the black lives matter movement as it constitutes itself is very wrong-headed. He’s going to be a very very interesting congressman along with the congressman Burgess Owens out of Utah and then a whole bunch of freshman women.
Leahy: Conservative republicans.
Carmichael: So the Republican party will be very different.
Listen to the full second hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photos “Claudia Tenney” and “Anthony Brindisi” by Claudia Tenney and Anthony Brindisi.
