Don Blankenship files to run for President

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

The Constitution Party is splintering rapidly to the point it probably won’t exist come 2024, and if it does, it’ll likely be a collection of unrelated former state affiliates that run various candidates in different states. The American Independence Party, which is completely dead aside from their California branch, accounts for ~30%  of the party’s votes in almost every election since the Howard Phillips era. The AIP in ‘16 nominated the Trump/Pence ticket and will probably do so again. That’s a huge blow to the Blakenship campaign right there.

Another factor is that the best known candidate doesn’t always win the CP nomination. For example, while the Libertarians would bend over backwards to have Amash as their candidate, the CP could reject Blakenship in favor of Darrell Castle or some other party insider. They rejected the well known Alan Keyes in 2008, and in 2012 Virgil Goode barely beat out Darrell Castle, an unknown lawyer who was their ‘08 VP.

I think Blakenship won’t even be their nominee in the end.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Say what you want about Blankenship....but the man is a fighter

That’s why I thought he’d give Manchin a race even though I didn’t think he’d win the primary. He’d have visited every county in WV, shaken every hand, insulted every foe, and probably would have worn Joe out in order to beat him.

Yet he still never had a snowballs chance in hell to win the primary.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

The fact we're still talking about this buffoon is a sad illustration of American politics.

To be fair, nobody really is talking about him though. Aside from Atlas and BallotAccessNews, I’ve not seen a single mention of Blakenship in the press, on social media, or even on IndependentPoliticalReport. He ran more Trumpier than Trump in WV - the MAGA motherland - and only got 18% of the vote.

Howie Hawkins has a bigger profile than this dude and he’s a retired UPS driver.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Cool, I guess. He might get like, what, hundred thousand votes

The Constitution Party’s institutional woes and the defection of the AIP in California means it’ll be closer to fifty thousand.