Happy Saturday, friends… and enemies too! You see, I have a very, very good idea of my audience on this blog, and well, that impacts what I write here. I’d love to write my thoughts on the Sixers, or next year’s Foo Fighters tour, or the Phillies off-season. I write about how Bernie Sanders sucks and what’s wrong with Ryan Crosswell and Bob Brooks, and you read it though. Yesterday, I talked about how the Allentown crew put self preservation over what’s right, and you read it. You know who you are. A couple thousand hits in the immediate hours after can be confusing, but I still know who most of these readers are. Readers in Arlington, in Washington, in Philadelphia, in Rockville, in Ashburn, in Brooklyn, in White Plains, in Allentown, in Bangor (ok, this one slightly confuses me), in Easton, in McKeesport, in Bethlehem, in Princeton, in Camp Hill, in Braddock, in Phillipsburg, in Hazleton, in Harrisburg… shit, I’m going to be honest, some of you read this so much that I actually am like 99% I know who each of you are. I know who my daily reader from Nazareth is. I also know why you read this, because I pretty much know who you are. And look, that’s great. I write this so someone reads it. I don’t write it to read myself.

Most of you reading this enjoy it. Some of you (hey opposition researchers!) send me into to post here. When I’m reasonably sure it’s true, I post it. Some of you wonder why, and even are critical of me doing it, as if Rich Wilkins not posting something a.) makes it untrue, b.) means it won’t get out. It is a uniquely poor trait of Pennsylvania politicos, more so than any of the other states I’ve been in, that we think we can keep secrets. We can’t. I’m not on any of the campaigns right now, I’m not paying for this stuff, it’s so easy to find that any idiot could do it. Which gets to my other point here- most of you enjoy reading this blog, but yesterday the smoke coming from Allentown looked like a mushroom cloud. One subject was sending the post around complaining, one actually complained to me personally (one talked to me and we actually joked about it, but I’ll leave that for another time), and one is probably already reading this and fuming. I could hear the words that I’m sure came out of one of their mouths- “Rich is a nobody anyway and no one cares what he says.”- while literally talking about what I wrote. Hey, I like irony. The truth is, there’s lots more to come on Crooksy and others. I already have some of it. I’ll print it when I want to. Assuming I want to. And you should be glad I do. If I’ve found all this on a zero dollar budget, don’t you think Ryan Mackenzie has this and more (he does)? At least by me writing it, you know about it now, not when it’s hitting you in the face.

Look, I’m not your boss. I’m not your dad. I’m not your Governor. I give you information, if you don’t care about that, it’s fine. If you’re fine with racism, fine. If you’re fine with extremism, fine. If you’re fine with political violence, that’s not fine, but you can be. If you’re fine with being untrustworthy, fine. Look, if you think Kaepernick was an ass for kneeling during the national anthem, that’s your choice. Bob Brooks agrees with you. Just own that though. Don’t claim he’s changed, because now he’s telling you he did because it’s good politics. Don’t claim it was “just a messy divorce,” when he didn’t pay his mother-in-law back one penny for over 14 years before she sued him. She had him sign a contract after four years of not being paid, and he still didn’t pay her. Just own it. If you’re fine with this because the guy’s union gave you a few bucks for your re-election, I actually totally get it. Just be real with yourself. He doesn’t dispute that he got sued and lost, hell he appealed it and lost. He doesn’t claim he didn’t post racist and extremist memes, he just says that was then. Hell, Ryan Crosswell at least tries to claim he wasn’t “really” a Republican, even though he re-registered in multiple states, and that he only worked on non-competes, not union busting as a private lawyer. Crooksy pretty much admits everything. Or just says it doesn’t matter.

Blogs aren’t the real world. This blog will not move voters next year. Maybe a few of you won’t vote for one candidate or another over something I show, but my audience is in the thousands, and as I stated above, you live in lots of different districts. Basically 90% of you are here reading for politics. A few of you are here reading about the other topics, and you’re my favorites. Most of what I write on this blog is for my audience’s interest though, a bunch of politicos. Sometimes it really reaches a broader audience, of politicos who never met me before. That’s great. This blog can only serve as a guide to how to win an election, it’s not going to get it done on it’s own. That takes money and mass communication with voters. That is not happening here on this page.