HOT AIR

HOT AIR

I had a 1989 Mercedes. The air conditioner stopped working. Since we live in Northern California where the temperature can get above 100 degrees, that is a problem. I took the car to three places.   The first one explained that he could not recharge the car with R12 because of California environmental laws. He would have to put in several new parts. The estimated cost was $2,500. I took to to two other places and got similar bids, one slightly lower, one slighly higher. I was depressed at the thought of dropping $2,500 into a 22 year old car. That night I went to the stock car races and sat next to an older guy who turned out to be an HVAC contractor. He was not a car mechanic. I told him my tale of woe. He suggested just recharging the car with R34, which is legal. That seemed too good to believe, so I checked with a Mercedes mechanic. He said: “don’t do that it will ruin your compressor and a whole bunch of other parts.” I asked if those would be the same parts he said had to be replaced now? He said “yes,” so I thanked him and moved on.  I went to Auto Zone and found an adapter plug that changed the fitting from R12 to R34. It cost me less than $20.   I bought some cans of R34, with stop leak, and charged the system myself. The air conditioner immediately started delivering deliciously cold air into my car. I drove the car for another three years and sold it with the air conditioner still humming right along.

A lot of brilliant Republican Establishment candidates and the liberal news anchors are warning Donald Trump that his blunt approach will turn off black voters. I suspect that would be the same black voters who already vote 90% of the time for the Democrat. John McCain got a whopping 4% of the black vote and half of those were by mistake. Mitt Romney surged to 6%. If Donald Trump makes black voters so angry that 90% of them vote against him, it will be an improvement.

I suspect a lot of people, most of them Democratic strategists, understand this very well. That is why they are throwing a first class hissy fit expressing outrage that Trump is  appealing to black voters by pointing out the obvious. Democrats have been get 90% of the black vote since 1964, when they lost the battle to stop the Civil Rights Act.  How’s that working out?  Black unemployment is still very high, the black poverty level is still high, schools in black neighborhoods still suck and black on black crime is getting worse, not better. So Trump shrugs and says: “why not vote for me, what you have got to lose?” Just imagine a world where black voters stop to think, just a little, before automatically voting for the Democrat. Perhaps the better question is “what does Donald Trump have to lose?