You can learn a lot about people by watching how they deal with pressure, so for that very reason I am a big fan of conflict. I think it’s the only way to really vet an idea, or a person beholding an idea. So when it comes to elections, debates are important ways to determine the right candidates from those who voters should pass on. With that said, there was a good debate hosted by the West Chester Tea Party on March 3rd at the Life Church at the corner of Butler Warren road and Rt 42 just south of Mason, Ohio that involved many of the candidates for the upcoming primary election that will be on March 17th so the timing of it was critical for voters to make their decisions and learn what they could while there was still time. And in the clip below a summary of the debate evolved into a tense exchange between George Lang who is running for the 4th District Senate seat in Ohio and his challenger, the disgraced fallen angel from the Statehouse Candice Keller. To George’s right was Lee Wong who couldn’t hold his excitement for Keller’s attacks on George while on George’s left was Keller who broke the rules of the evening by refusing to keep her comments within the time limit as she patronized the obvious front-runner like a mother scolding a baby, part of her strategy of attacking the establishment structure of the GOP itself as if she was ordained by God himself to step over the rules of mankind just to get her way. It is an interesting psychological performance that says a lot about all three candidates.

Now when it comes to rules, it is people who are on flimsy ground who need to break them. For instance, if I wanted to get rid of all the bad guys in the world, I would just take my guns out on the streets and shoot down everyone I thought was bad, and from my perspective, that may be a heroic thing to do. But its against the laws we have created as a society. Obviously to prevent that kind of violence from happening I instead elect representatives to create laws that we all somewhat agree to so we can have a stable society where rules prevent that kind of violence. So while people were clapping in the audience that Candice Keller broke the rules of the debate by going well over her time limit, she essentially stated that she was willing to break any rules thrown her way if it meant she could make her point. What she does as a legislator or as a potential legislator in the senate is not relevant if she feels God gives her some permission to break the laws of mankind to serve some master that is over the governing bodies of elections. And like the Ding Dong that Lee Wong is, he was there clapping with the other radicals in the audience who applauded Candice Keller’s attack on George Lang and the GOP establishment in general as a symbolic gesture that went far beyond acceptability. What if God said to me to hit the streets and shoot all the drug dealers, all the abortion practitioners, and all the people of corruption whom I might meet that day? That kind of testimony doesn’t hold up in any court of law, but it would certainly label such a person as a deranged lunatic.

The strategy that is clearly unsaid between Lee Wong and Candice Keller was on stage that evening and their attack, their beef with the world is that they are not part of the establishment, and if given a choice would like to be. George Lang is the front runner, the clear establishment figure in this election for senate so any shots that they can take at that formidable wall they consider a success. Lee Wong has very little shot at winning this election but his history with George Lang goes way back to over a decade so he and Candice hope to peel away enough votes between them to bring down not only an establishment candidate, but to bring harm to the GOP itself. However, their placement on the outside as opposed to the inside were results of their own decisions. They chose to be where they are in life, and now they find themselves looking in from the outside where politics is clearly a collaborative sport. You must be able to build teams, not just vote up or down. You must live within the rules you vote on; you can’t just do whatever you want and not give the mic to the next person when your time limit is up. Of course Crazy Candice received an applause for her actions, just as a nude streaker gets cheers at a ball game for breaking the rules, stripping off all their clothes, jumping the fence and running around for as long as they can until they are captured by security. That was essentially what Keller did at the debate as George, who was clearly playing by the rules, was clearly at a disadvantage within that audience to the spectacle.

You can’t call yourself good if you can’t be successful within the ground rules of the game, and in a debate where people are making decisions about you based on your skills to make rules and follow the rules, when you can’t follow the simple format you are announcing to the world that you will do what you want when you want no matter what it costs. It might look like a little thing to just a casual observer but Candice Keller and Lee Wong are both on the outside clapping for the downfall of the establishment because they have not shown themselves skilled at being politicians within the rules of the game, so they want to bring the game down because they can’t be successful within the established rules. Its also healthy to challenge the rules but that’s not what Candice was doing, it was in breaking the rules that she hopes to appeal to voters who just want to bring down the established politics of our times, and this is a person who wants to go to Columbus to make rules. The problem is obvious and watching that clip, you can see the normally mild mannered Ding Dong Lee Wong show his true colors by gesturing to Candice’s disrespect for the format structure and attack at that wall which divides insiders from outsiders with the same enthusiasm as an ANTIFA anarchist.

George Lang has been very successful at following the rules and creating them. All he could really do even under pressure was sit there and listen to Keller go on and on because she was obviously outside the format of the event which he wasn’t willing to follow. He could have broke a whole bunch of rules and taken action against her to shut her up, but Candice knew that as the established candidate to beat, George had everything to lose, while she had nothing, so it was no skin off her back to go on some radical rampage using her pro-life work as a mask of civility to justify her breaking of the rules that evening. If George had done the same, he would have shown himself to be as desperate as Lee and Candice were, so he sat there and took it the best he could even though it was wrong at so many levels. He held his composure well and people saw what was going on and that was why the event was a good one. Pressure certainly showed the good from the bad and voters had a clear view of who could live within the rules and who could be trusted to make new ones. But more than that, the reason that Candice Keller is being thought of as crazy is becoming clear for people. People may clap and cheer at the streaker showing their rear, but in the minds of everyone, they think they are crazy. Everyone who has to step outside the rules of society to make their point will be thought in this way, and that is particularly destructive to those running for an office that actually makes rules.

Rich Hoffman