{"id":90270,"date":"2026-08-18T07:37:46","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T12:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=90270"},"modified":"2026-08-18T07:37:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T12:37:47","slug":"shooting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=90270","title":{"rendered":"Shooting Off Your Nose To Spite Your Face"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I haven’t talked – here, anyway – about last week’s primaries. \u00a0I’m a little astounded, to be honest – Minnesota Republicans defied Trump’s misguided endorsement\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>the misdirecting bleating of “Action 4 Liberty” and voted for Michele Tafoya for Senate and Lisa Demuth for Governor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Neither is a perfect conservative. \u00a0Either were the most conservative candidate who\u00a0could\u00a0<\/em>win. \u00a0Not saying they will – although Peggy Flanagan is vulnerable, and an October surprise from the Feds would make the governor’s race interesting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But let’s talk about the opposition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alycia Gruenhagen is running a write-in campaign against Tafoya, calling her “pro-choice”. \u00a0Which is technically true – she’s got the same stance as President Trump has, and as I recall Gruenhagen was a solid Trump supporter. \u00a0 She’s one of a group of Minnesota Republicans who apparently believes that a vote is representation of one’s aspirations, not a way to push policy. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I keep asking them this. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Let’s say there’s a candidate – call them Candidate A – who favors abortion until birth and after. \u00a0She’s got 45% of the vote before the election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There’s a moderate – Candidate B – who would ban abortion after 12 weeks. \u00a0B has 40% locked up. \u00a0<\/p>\n

There’s a hardliner, Candidate C, who would bulldoze Planned Parenthood and salt the earth. \u00a0C has 1% of the vote. \u00a0<\/p>\n

If you are a pro-lifer<\/em>, there are five options (since voting for “A” is presumably a no-go)<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You can vote for B, reducing A’s lead. \u00a0If enough follow suit, B could win.\u00a0<\/li>\n
  2. You can vote for C, which doesn’t reduce As lead and making B’s path to victory one vote harder.\u00a0<\/li>\n
  3. You can write in someone else. \u00a0Again, doesn’t reduce A’s lead. \u00a0<\/li>\n
  4. You can abstain. \u00a0Same result.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Any choice\u00a0but #1\u00a0<\/em>makes a pro-infantide victory more likely – in effect, making your pro-life vote a pro-choice vote. \u00a0<\/p>\n

    Ms. Gruenhagen seems to have blocked my comments on her website, so the logic must be an issue…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I haven’t talked – here, anyway – about last week’s primaries. \u00a0I’m a little astounded, to be honest – Minnesota Republicans defied Trump’s misguided endorsement\u00a0and\u00a0the misdirecting bleating of “Action 4 Liberty” and voted for Michele Tafoya for Senate and Lisa Demuth for Governor.\u00a0 Neither is a perfect conservative. \u00a0Either were the most conservative candidate who\u00a0could\u00a0win. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[471,24,72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-26","category-culture-war","category-mngop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90271,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90270\/revisions\/90271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}