Check out this exchange earlier today between Trumpster Radio host John Fredericks and far-right loony Republican Del. Nick Freitas, who is running for the VA07 Congressional nomination. Recall that Freitas f’ed up last time around, too. Utter incompetence on Freitas’ part (see here for details regarding what he screwed up this time), and to Fredericks’ credit, he rips Freitas a proverbial “new one” for that incompetence. Get yourself some popcorn, with or without hot butter, and check this out! 🙂
Fredericks: “So Nick. So we went through this with you in 2019. And we all kind of went with it, right, didn’t file the paperwork, mistakes happen, somebody else’s fault, lawsuits, doesn’t work out. We back…your write-in campaign, you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on that, money could have been spent on other candidates. Now you’re running again, you’re the favorite, we’ve endorsed you, and now you don’t file the paperwork again, Nick, the second time in a row. For your supporters, I’ve got to tell you Nick, I just got to be honest, I mean, it looks like your campaign is incompetent, it looks like everybody’s passing the buck, it looks like you have no adults running the show. And I’ve got to ask myself this question, who’s the candidate that I want to go up against Abigail Spanberger, who has a juggernaut – she’s going to raise millions of dollars and her campaign has already proven to be first class – and you guys can’t file paperwork two times in a row. How do you explain this?”
Freitas: “So, there’s a couple of things that we do need to explain. One of the things is, this is not the same campaign team that I had last time. And this time what we did in
order to make sure something like this wouldn’t happen is we actually hired general counsel and we put specifically as their responsibilities to ensure that all of our paperwork was in on time, both federal and state. Because this time there’s a lot of federal paperwork as well; you’ve got to have financial documents, and quite frankly there’s some other candidates that haven’t gotten all those in, although that hasn’t made the news like this has. The paperwork was turned in, it was turned in within the window that is allowed. Now that’s not good enough, because there was still there was still some paperwork that was late. Here’s what’s so frustrating, John, is that we did take precautions to make sure that we would have someone that was specifically focused on this. I hired the same general counsel that the [Republican Party of Virginia] uses for all of this, because I figured this is someone that is intimately familiar, they’re regularly dealing with State Board of Elections. We wanted someone with that sort of extensive experience dealing with this in order to make that happen. Now, when this took place I was furious. We got on the phone, I called up, I asked for an explanation, he offered his resignation, I’m accepting that resignation and we’re moving on from here. It’s not like last time, where
all of a sudden the party hadn’t submitted paperwork. the campaign was late on its paperwork and so we had to go through this battle. This is not the same dynamic here…Last time was very very different than this time…I’m not hiring anybody else associated with the [Republican Party of Virginia] at this point...My initial concern was, was this incompetence or was it sabotage…who is messing with us?…Don ‘t buy into the lie being put out…”
Fredericks: “I don’t think your supporters are buying into the lie. I’m one of them, so I can talk not in third person but in first person. First of all, it feels like you’re passing the buck again…I mean…does it stop with your campaign manager, Joe, or does it stop with the candidate…you’re the candidate, doesn’t the buck stop with Nick Freitas?”
Freitas: “It’s like anything else, right? It’s just like in the military, ultimately the commander – or the candidate – is ultimately responsible for everything the campaign does or fails to do…but…it’s like anything else, you hire people to do various tasks…I’m not passing the buck, but…this is what happened…all the other aspects of this campaign have actually gone incredibly well…which is why we’re so far ahead…”
Fredericks: “…I would have thought after 2019…you simply can’t do this again…some of your supporters, like me, are shaken by this…shaken the confidence in your campaign. And I gotta think to myself, this is a clown show going on in there that they can’t file their paperwork...Should Nick still be the nominee, does he have a campaign infrastructure…in order to go up against probably the strongest Democratic candidate in a Trump district in America?...I’m concerned about your campaign…you need to take personal responsibility…you’re the candidate…This is embarrassing for your backers…and it should be embarrassing to you also…”
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