Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
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your support. So Charlotte Democrat voters had the opportunity to
change course, to send a message in the wake of
all of the national attention, mainly negative that we have
been receiving by going to the polls yesterday in their
Democrat primary and opting for a change of course. And
Democrat voters all like forty thousand of them or so
out of a city of like half a million plus
registered voters, they opted to, well's stay the course there. Yeah,
we're fine, this is this is good. We're gonna keep
doing what we're doing. It's going very well. National attention notwithstanding, now,
there was there was a bit of bad news for me.
I mean, good news maybe for the city of Charlotte,
but bad news for me personally yesterday because Tijuana Brown
lost and it's bad news for me because that city
councilwoman was a content generating machine for me. Not that
this is about me, but if it was about me,
this would be bad because now I'm probably not going
to have as much show prep that just writes itself
for me because she did lose in her primary. So
I guess what it takes to oust an indicted Democrat
is to just have a different Democrat run against her
in the primary. That's what does it because I have
no doubt had she run, or had she survived her primary,
that she would have won in the general because the
district she sits in is a heavy Democrat district. So
she was defeated. So that's why I said that the
Democrat voters largely opted for the status quo largely, but
that that gain, that little bright spot, is snuffed out
a wee bit by another district result, which was Marjorie
Molina losing to what's this dude's name, Juan Diego Mazura
Arias or JD Juan Diego JD or would that be
da what D Juan Diego Masuerra Arias And give you
a little bit of details about him in a minute.
So it's a it's sort of a it's a trade off. Right,
we lost the indicted councilwoman in the primary, but we
are picking up a staffer for aoc On city council.
So right, the political choices in ideology will largely remain
the same, Okay, but we're just going to get some
different people there, and that's going to make all the difference. See,
they will be able to sell the leftist message because
they know everybody agrees with the leftist message. They just
haven't figured out, you know, as Democrats, they haven't figured
out how to convince us of it through an appropriate
slogan or a campaign pitch or something. It's just marketing.
That's always been the problem, that's what they say. So
they keep saying after all of these post mortems and
such after the twenty twenty four election, keep saying, it's
not us, it's not our messaging, or sorry, it's not
our policies, it's our messaging. We just can't make these
really stupid people listen to us. Wellhy won't they just agree?
So they've been you know, focus group testing all sorts
of different slogans and such and so maybe this former
worker for AOC, he's gonna bring the goods. He's gonna
be able to communicate like a Zoran Mamdani gee Hotti
adjacent kami. Maybe we shall see. So first, let me
go back to Tijuana Brown. Let me circle back Jen
Psaki style here and give you the details here. This
is from Nick Sullivan's piece at the Charlotte Observer. Joy Mayo.
So you know she'd have my vote with a name
like Mayo, right, because you know my fondness for the Mayo.
It is the superior condiment. It's better than all other condiments.
Anything any other condiment can do, Mayo can match or
do better. Okay, So Joy Mayo defeated Tijuana Brown not
spelled like the city. That's tiju Ana. This is tia
w Ana Tijawana Brown. Anyway. She is the one who
was indicted for using the COVID money allegedly for a
business that really didn't do anything, if even it existed
at all, allegedly, and then spent a ton of money
like tens of thousands of dollars on handbags and a
birthday party where she had a throne, literally a throne
because she's the queen. It was her fiftieth birthday. And
remember her qualification that got her the seat initially in
Charlotte was the fact that she was a formerly incarcerated person,
a formerly incarcerated person or an FIP whorre's I call
it a FIP. She was a FIP, and that is
enough to put you in charge of a district to
have a vote on the direction of the city. That
is all the qualification necessary. At least two years ago,
she was a FIP. Now she may be a twice FIP,
a double FIP, if you will, this time on federal charges.
With all of the precincts reporting unofficial results, saying on
a second, here I have the I have the Board
of Elections website results. Here did you do? Here? We
go forty nine point forty eight percent, so forty nine percent,
rounding down Joy Mayo forty nine percent of the Democrat
vote coming in second, Tijuana Brown at twenty five percent,
former city councilman Warren Turner at twenty two percent, and
then Montravious King, who actually dropped out of the race
and endorsed Brown. He picked up three percent, So even
if all of his support had gone to Brown, that
would have still only gotten her twenty eight percent. So
that is what we call in the biz a landslide,
that is a wipeout. So that is good news for
the City of Charlotte. I'm sure the Chamber of Commerce
is very happy about this result. I'm sure a lot
of the mayor and her voting block on city Council
they are happy about this, right, the tourism development people,
they are happy about this because, let's be fair, you know,
it's not exactly a good pr lure to wu or
retain businesses, attract corporate headquarters and such when you've got
an indicted city council member showing up at the grippe grins,
you know, it's just it's a little awkward. So she
won't be around anymore to ask her meandering, uninformed questions
during council meetings while she quote fights for the people.
So she's gone. Mayo received a number of key endorsements
heading into election day, the Black Political CAUs of Charlotte Mecklenburg,
the Charlotte Mecklberg FOP, the lgbt Q plus Democrats of
Mecklinburg County, and the Charlotte Observer Editorial board all favored
Mayo over Ketchup and mustard. Mayo is a community activist
and a leader of a nonprofit. So, okay, a community activist, Well,
what could go wrong there? Sure? Okay. She became entangled
Brown did in a controversy when she was indicted, which
that tends to happen. You tend to get entangled in
a controversy when you get indicted. That's always been my experience.
Not that I've been indicted, but whenever I've seen other
people get indicted, then there seems to be an entangling
controversy about that. I don't know if they're related. I
don't know if there's some connection there. But she was
entangled in a controversy, that is true, and it was
about the indictment, along with her two adult daughters on
charges of wirefraud, conspiracy and wirefraud used to falsely obtain
pandemic relief loans. And remember her defense was I paid
it back. I paid it back after they started asking
questions about how she got the loan. Then she paid
it back years later, So that was her defense. And
maybe that a flying court. I'm not a lawyer, but
I don't think it will. But maybe it will we
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point here to mention on the that District three race
where Tijawana Brown lost to Joy Mayo in the Democrat primary.
Mayo will now go on to face Republican James Bowers
in the general election in November. He lost in twenty
twenty three against Tijawanna Brown. He only picked up a
quarter of the vote, less than a quarter of the vote,
according to the Observer, because it is such a heavy
Democrat district, or is the Democrats call it fair mats?
All right, let me go over to the phones here
in chat with Michael. Hello, Michael, welcome to the program.
Speaker 2: Hey, how you doing. I just want to make this
comment on that mayor race. I just don't understand. I'm
a twenty year Navy guy. I just don't understand the
people in Charlotte in that situation on the subway or
the train. If that had been the other way situation,
that'd be headline news for three or four weeks. And
people get what they vote for. I mean, that's why
people a couple of weeks ago they story people don't
go to Charlotte Uptown anymore because is it like them
the murder capital of its like twice the increase since
last year.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that's accurate. I believe the murder number
has actually come down from last year. It rose and
then it came down, like over the last five years.
I mean a lot of this stuff spiked during COVID
and right after COVID. But but no, but no, Look,
I mean, yeah, crime is definitely a problem. And even
though the City Council and the CMPD will tell us
crime numbers are dropping. In all of this. You see
a store like this, and you see stories like we
see every day on the news, and people do not
feel like it is safe. And look, my wife works
in Center City, and I know, I go over there,
I pick her up, I know, meet her after work
or something. She tells me about stuff she sees every day,
and it does not feel like a safe environment. So
that's what people are reacting to. Michael, I appreciate the call.
The reason. Look, Mayor vy Lyles one reelection in the primary,
or I said won the primary. She didn't win reelection yet,
that would be November number one. Low turnout there were
there was less than eight percent turnout. Ballots cast forty
two thousand for forty two, So about forty two and
a half thousand ballots cast out of five hundred and
thirty two thousand voters. That's that's an eight percent turnout, right,
So you have a very low turnout election number one
and number two. Most importantly is that vy Liles is
the chamber pick, she's the business pick, she's the uptown
crowd pick, and she has been from the very beginning.
I've said this for twenty five years regarding Charlotte. There
are three political powers in Charlotte. Number one the Democrats,
Number two the Republicans, and number three the Chamber. And
the Chamber is the most powerful. And back in the
day when Republicans could actually win at large races and
Pat McCrory could win a record seven straight terms as mayor,
it was because the business community back to those Republicans
and if you worry Chamber candidate, you could win. And
then they kept on feeding the Democrat alligator, hoping it
would eat them last. And vy Lyles is of that
of that power structure. In the piece at the Observer
after her win last night, she is described as a
lifelong public servant. And why is that, Well, because she
worked for the city. She was an assistant city manager,
budget director, and she is intimately aware and expert at
the inner workings of the city government. And that's how
she governs. It's obvious to me. All right, You hear
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better returns. So The Charlotte Observer describes Mayor vy Lyles
as a lifelong public servant. She enjoyed a mostly positive
reception across her first four terms. She has been held
for her deep understanding of local government and ability to
reach across the Aisle to implement her agenda. She worked
for years really reach across the there's only two Republicans
on the eleven member body like. She worked for years
as Charlott's budget director and assistancity manager. Okay, So when
I say she's a bureaucrat and she governs like one,
this is what I mean. Bureaucrats are rarely leaders. Right,
You're in the bureaucracy, and so you're not going to
be out there in public marshaling forces. You're probably working
behind the scenes because that's where bureaucrats do their work.
That's where they exert their power and influence. And that's
what she does. And when something goes wrong, bureaucrats do
not step up and say that was my fault. Yeah
I did that one. No, you get the you know,
I'm going to hide among the rank and file in
the quote system or the city, or the county, the agency,
the department. Right department officials say it's that you know
a bureaucrat's name unless they do something so egregious. For example,
this magistrate that let the light rail murderer go without
a bond the last time he was in front of her,
I'll get into that too, by the way. But this
is what I mean. Why how she governs like a bureaucrat.
She does this stuff behind the scenes, then makes an announcement,
usually you know, some sort of a ribbon cutting or
with a big fat pair of scissors or something. And
that has not served Charlotte well in this moment. It
has served her well. And you could say it served
Charlotte well if you are all about the big fancy
projects and the use of taxpayer funds to do all
sorts of things, which did you see this the other day.
They're gonna spend millions of dollars. I think it's like
three million dollars on the Excelsior Club renovation, which was
a historically black nightclub. And so we're gonna use taxpayer
funds to rehab a nightclub. Okay, sure, why not? Right?
I mean, why not? That's what I mean when I
say she's a bureaucrat. That's all of her professional experience
is working within the government as a government official. And
that's why the business community likes her. That's why they
can work with her. She knows how to get stuff done,
she knows what levers to pull, and all of that
behind the scenes, and there is a lot of people
that are still on staff that worked with her and
like her, and a lot of people say, you know,
in one on one she's very personal and likable. I
never had any problems with her when she was assistant
city manager and I was a reporter and I did,
you know, multiple interviews I'd talked with her in the
past and stuff like that. Never had any problem with
her because that was what she was doing. But as
a mayor, it's a different kind of a gig, and
that's something she has become I think, acutely aware of.
If she wasn't before, you know, this weekend, she is now.
In fact, she didn't even do any kind of election
a primary night party or availability for the media yesterday
because of the situation. Because I can only imagine what
her social media feeds and email account inbox. I can
only imagine the amount of fiery but mostly peaceful protest
emails and correspondence and such that has been making its
way into her digital mailboxes. I can only imagine, and
I can only imagine that she's probably getting threats. You know,
she's probably getting racist messages and stuff, and none of
that is acceptable by the way, none of it. But
people feel emboldened when they're behind a keyboard. They're anonymous,
they get the internet, muscles and such. But I just
I if this was if there was an if there
was there's a chance for a change, Democrats, you had
your chance. You have had your chance. You have had
multiple chances during these primaries for the last decade, and
you all just keep putting the same people back in
well except for the indicted one, the formerly incarcerated Tijuana Brown.
Now in the general, Lyles is going to be going
up against a Republican Missoon Kim, as well as Libertarian
Rob Yates. Both of them ran against her two years
ago and she beat them both, So we shall see
what happens there. Now there is another race, and this one,
I guess is probably going to go to a recount
because the margin of victory was thirty seven votes. Thirty
seven votes. This is in the District five race. This
is over in East Charlotte, and you've got the incumbent,
Marjorie Molina, and I think she's done a perfectly acceptable
job in what I've seen. I think she come from
a corporate background. But she lost by thirty seven votes
to Juan Diego Masuera Arias. He is a first time candidate,
but has political experience working for Representative Alexandria Acazio Cortez,
Democrat from New York. He also worked for the DNC
as well as the Century Foundation, which is a progressive
think tank. So this dude just gonna guess here is
a leftist. So you swapped out the indicted one, Tijuana
Brown for a community activist, and you're swapping out Marjorie
Molina for an AOC staffer. Okay. He also chairs the
Hispanic Democratic Caucus of Mecklenburg County and touted early support
from former Mayor Jennifer Roberts. That's an indictment right there,
and Representative Jordan Lowe. So obviously the demographics played to
his benefit. In et Charlotte, you have a much larger
Hispanic vote than you do in other parts of the city,
so that's you know, they saw the name and they voted,
I'm assuming for the Hispanic name, and maybe that's what
gave Molina the edge last time around. Maybe people thought
she was a Spanic with the last name Molina. I
don't know, but people vote like this. These are voting
patterns like that are on exhibition on display year after year.
Election after election, Molina had picked up the endorsement of
the Black Political Caucus Masuera arias he got support from
the SEIU because of course he did. Of course he did,
and he has won the seat because there is no
Republican opposition in the general election. It's also a safe
Democrats seat, so even if there was a Republican he
would probably still win it. So we're going to get
more of the same, but maybe even harder. So when
I was a kid, my grandpa died with Alzheimer's, and
before he died, my mom and my dad took care
of him as he got worse. Forty years ago, there
were no treatments and not much support for caregivers and family.
But things are different today because of the work of
so many people, including the Alzheimer's Association of Western Carolina.
It's a great organization with awesome people with huge hearts.
I've been a supporter for twenty five years. This cause
means a lot to me. I participate in the annual
Walk to End Alzheimer's and I'm leading a Charlotte team
again this year, and it's called once Again Pete's Pack.
You can sign up and you can join the team
and walk with us. It's on October eighteenth, that truest field.
Sign up at alz dot org slash walk and then
you can search for my team name Pete's Pack. There's
also a link at thepetepod dot com. There's also a
link in the description of this podcast. Also, I'll be
am seeing the Gastonia Walk on October eleventh then, so
you can make a team and join that one too,
or make a donation and help me hit my goal
of five thousand dollars. If you do, I really appreciate it.
There are a bunch of other walks all over the Carolinas.
You can go to alz dot org slash walk for
all the dates and locations. We're closer than ever to
stopping Alzheimer's. Can you help us get there? Will you
walk with me? For a different future, for families, for
more time for treatments. This is why we walk. Got
a message on the Twitter machine from good Wahoo Pete.
Another take on Mayor Lyles is that she has been
a lifelong feeder at the public trough, lived off taxpayers
her whole professional life. Oh that's fair a net tax
consumer if you will, not a taxpayer. So some of
the other race results from the primary yesterday, Oh yeah,
the at large race, by the way, just a reminder
that at large races are designed to suppress my representation.
They should be abolished. Standard disclaimer there. The City of
Charlotte long ago should have moved to a strictly district
based system. I've been saying this for a while. In fact,
it's one of the few things that I agreed with
the former Charlotte City councilman and Mayor pro Tim Braxton Winston,
who was a left wing activist type, but he was
against the at large and he was an at large representative.
Yet we need to get get rid of the at
large representative seats. Make them all district seats, because there's
they do not allow for any other representation onto the
city council. They block out basically four seats. And the
reason why originally the at large seats were designed was
to keep black people from getting elected. Now it keeps
Republicans from getting elected. So so number one in the
Democrat primary once again, dimple Agh, Mirror, uh Lawana Slack Mayfield,
James Smudgie, Mitchell and Victoria Watlington, So all four of
the incumbents voted back in over. In District one, Dante
Anderson easily won in her primary. She's the incumbent there.
As I mentioned, Joy Mayo beat Tijuana Brown, the incumbent
Renee Perkins Johnson Renee Johnson. She won by a two
to one margin over Will Russell, who came out of
retirement out of the NBA to run for that seat.
If I recall mentioned in District five, Juan Diego Masuera
Arias beat Marjorie Molina in the only Republican primary that
was on the ballot. Christop Bacari beat Sorry Chukra by
a lot, by like fifty percentage points, seventy six to
twenty four percent. And so that's why and Ed Drake's
the only other Republican on council. He did not have
a primary appt So Crystal Balcari is a Republican, So
she will run in the general, and that's generally seen
as the that's going to be the tightest race for
a Republican to win. Democrats might be able to flip
that seat. I don't know, I don't even know if
she has an opponent at this point, but I believe
she does so, so that's that. Let me get to
the text line and read some of the massages that
have been coming in. Do do Do Do Do Do
Do Do Do Do. Sorry, I'm scrawling back. Don't know
who this is from. I'm remembering Keith Larson's spot on
description of Charlotte as tidy town, always concerned with its
optics and reputation over everything else. Indeed, it was also
a little bit more than just the optics, but it
was also all of the shiny new objects, the shiny things,
the you know, all of the public expenditures, the light
rail line, the arena, all the museums, the parks, like,
all of the stuff, all of the projects, the new
Convention Center, expansion, the NASCAR Hall of Fame stuff, like,
all of the projects in order to you know, create
this this tidy town look. That was one of the
things that people would say when they came to Charlotte.
One of the things they would say is that they
were always surprised at how clean it was, because it
was we took pride in the cleanliness of the city. Also,
we tore down all of the old buildings, so like
there's really no historical buildings anymore. Like if you want,
like you go on a historical tour something, you're usually
just going to be looking down the whole time, because
that's where they put the placards and they just sink
them into the concrete. You know, at this site stood
some building torn down one hundred years ago. Charlotte has
always been that way. So all of the brand new,
shiny buildings, all the newness, all of that stuff, and
people come here from older, decrepit, dirty cities and they're
just like, oh my gosh, this is like the Truman
Show kind of like level of cleanliness and tidiness. And
it seemed like Charlotte had its act together. And then
of course all of those people from other cities voted
every single Republican off of all of the governing bodies.
And now there's no role for Republicans to play any
longer unless they're going to play ball with the Chamber
and the Democrat mayor. That's the game now, and we
are all suffering for it. David says, we will miss
Marijuana Brown or whatever her name is. It's Tijuana. Jody says,
I wonder how much transit security would Johnny Jennings's three
hundred thousand dollars settlement have bought. It's a good question,
and Tom ain't no way. Pete Mustard rules. Dang on second,
let me just block Tom forever. Yes, Mayo is the
superior condiment. All right, that'll do it for this episode.
Thank you so much for listening. I could not do
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