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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
In general, the reaction to Hillary Clinton's speech at the DNC seems to be very positive. Most of the usual suspects among the talking head TV crowd were raving about it last night and even today the consensus seems to be that she delivered the goods.
Personally, I found it appalling. Sure, her delivery was sound, but don't the words matter? She tried to throw in a few uplifting remarks, but overall the tone of her rhetoric was relentlessly negative. These days Democrats seems incapable of saying more than four sentences without extolling the latest example of victimhood, but Hillary's pity parade was truly pathetic: I will always remember the single mom who had adopted two kids with autism. She didn't have any health insurance, and she discovered she had cancer. But she greeted me with her bald head, painted with my name on it, and asked me to fight for health care for her and her children. (APPLAUSE) I will always remember the young man in a Marine Corps T-shirt who waited months for medical care. And he said to me, "Take care of my buddies. A lot of them are still over there. And then will you please take care of me?" And I will always remember the young boy who told me his mom worked for the minimum wage, that her employer had cut her hours. He said he just didn't know what his family was going to do. This sort of emotional pandering is simply beyond parody. Biden and Obama are really going to have to dig deep to find more depressing anecdotes than these whoppers that Hillary trotted out last night. It's like a high stakes game of pity poker. I'll see your single mom with two adopted kids with autism who has no health care and gets cancer and raise you an African-American lesbian from New Orleans who because of Katrina and high gas prices can't afford to travel to Walter Reed to visit her disabled partner who was wounded in Iraq because of lack of body armor. Where does this end? And are these seemingly endless tales of "woe is us" really what the American people want to hear from their would-be presidents? Do Democrats really enjoy wallowing in misery like this? They certainly seemed to last night. And what about the assumption--implicit throughout these pity parties--that the only way that these people, the only way that any of us can be helped is by the government? Are voters really buying that? When Hillary said this: Most of all, I ran to stand up for all those who have been invisible to their government for eight long years. She intended it as an indictment of the Bush administration. Besides being demagogic BS, it's a frightening look into the way that people like Hillary view the role of the government. Like a watchful mother duck looking after her ducklings, the government must keep all of us in its sight at all times. If we stray off the path or try to go our own way, it needs to nudge us (gently) back on course. We depend on it for nurture and nourishment and will be safe as long as we stay within its fold. Frankly, I want my visibility to the government to be as limited as possible and visa versa. So after telling us how awful things were and how only Democrats (read government) could make it better, certain sections of the speech came off as discordant: We need leaders once again who can tap into that special blend of American confidence and optimism that has enabled generations before us to meet our toughest challenges, leaders who can help us show ourselves and the world that with our ingenuity, creativity, and innovative spirit, there are no limits to what is possible in America. Wait a second. Where was that confidence and optimism in meeting our toughest challenges earlier in the speech? Are Americans supposed to be confident that Democrats will take care of them and optimistic that they'll win in November? Is this how generations before us met those challenges? I don't recall that the leaders of generations before us led off every speech with a laundry list of misery. This was a shining example of her demagoguery: We need a president who understands we can't solve the problems of global warming by giving windfall profits to the oil companies while ignoring opportunities to invest in the new technologies that will build a green economy. Only a Democrat can define "giving" as not taking away. There was one line in the speech that seemed designed to elicit both applause and laughter: Now, with an agenda like that, it makes perfect sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities, because these days they're awfully hard to tell apart. That line was so lame that Al Franken didn't even think it was funny. Maybe I'm just not judging the speech properly. It did succeed it making everyone who heard it feel miserable, so by Democratic standards it was a smashing success. Misery really does love company after all. Labels: 2008 Election Tuesday, August 19, 2008
You can still color me skeptical about McCain's chances of taking Minnesota in November (with or without T-Paw by his side), but when you look at the RealClearPolitics breakdown of the survey trend, you can't help but come to the conclusion that the race is tightening up. When the Quinnipiac University/Wall Street Journal/ Washingtonpost.Com poll came out in July showing McCain only two points back, I thought it was an outlier since the same poll had Obama up by seventeen only a month earlier. But now with recent polls from Rasmussen and Survey USA showing the gap at four and two points respectively, it looks like it was a valid indicator.
Labels: 2008 Election Monday, August 18, 2008
o-hole
n 1: (obscene) insulting terms of address for Obama supporters who are condescending or obnoxious or stupid or irritating or ridiculous: that guy's a total o-hole 2: the opening made by interlacing your hands in a circle to form an "O" as a symbol of support for Obama Labels: 2008 Election
A few quick notes on Saturday's Saddlewood sit-down:
- Obama has been getting a lot of heat--and rightly so--for his response when asked when a baby's human rights begin. "Above my pay grade" is a tricky way for people to appear clever (at least in their minds) while dodging a question. It's a pretty lame excuse when someone employs it the business world. It's inexcusable that a candidate who wants to be President of the United States would try to get away with it. But I thought the more interesting part of Obama's response was the logic he used to explain why he supported Roe v. Wade. Here's more of his response from the transcript: BUT POINT NUMBER TWO, I AM PRO-CHOICE. I BELIEVE IN ROE V. WADE AND COME TO THAT CONCLUSION NOT BECAUSE I'M PRO ABORTION, BUT BECAUSE ULTIMATELY I DON'T THINK WOMEN MAKE THESE DECISIONS CASUALLY. THEY WRESTLE WITH THESE THINGS IN PROFOUND WAYS. I really don't think abortion is that complicated. If you believe that it ends a human life, you oppose it (unless you're from the Singer school and think taking human life is fine as long as it serves utilitarian purposes). If you don't believe that abortion ends a human life, you support allowing women to have a right to it (although some part of your conscience often calls on you to say that you "personally oppose" it or that it should be rare). This is the primary division between those who are pro-choice and those who are pro-life. But Obama rationalizes his pro-choice position based on the degree of difficulty involved in arriving at the decision to have an abortion. Can you imagine applying this sort of standard to other areas of morality? Well, I really struggled with the decision whether to embezzle money from my employer. Let me tells you, the decision to whack dat guy was not arrived at easily. Whether an act is right or wrong is based on the action itself and the consequences of it not how hard it was for someone to come to the decision to act. Besides, doesn't all this profound wrestling about whether to have an abortion or not argue for the idea that when in doubt you come down on the side of life? After all, no one struggles with the decision whether to brush their teeth in the morning. - No matter how they really feel about John McCain or how hard they're going to have to hold their noses to vote for him come November, Republicans should realize how fortunate they are to have a candidate whose upside at appearing at a forum like Saddlewood is far greater than his downside. Even the biggest backers of George W. Bush would have to admit that they would cringe at the thought of him appearing in a similar setting. The potential for disaster would be high and the best you could hope for was that he made it through without committing any major rhetorical blunders. I can still recall that sinking feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach watching Bush in the 2004 debates. You were holding your breath and praying that he could just muddle his way through. You had no expectations of anything more. Now with McCain, the feeling is different. You feel confident that he has a command of his thoughts and the ability to put them into words. His answers are usually clear and crisp and he avoids the rambling that often leads to trouble. I look forward to the presidential debates this fall and only wish there were more of them. I'm not sure if Obama supporters can say the same. Labels: 2008 Election Friday, August 15, 2008
At Wizbang, Jay Tea analyzes the breathless reports that deployed troops are donating to Obama six times more often than McCain and provides much needed (especially for lefty bloggers who seem to struggle with understanding statistical relevance) perspective:
Let's take those numbers and play with them a little. Minimum donation to be counted by Open Secrets: $200 Average donation to Obama: $455 and change. Average donation to McCain: $410 and change Total donations to Democrats: $63,882 Total donations to Republicans: $76,027 Average donation to Democrats: $456 and change Average donation to Republicans: $500 and change Total donations: 292 Total donations to Democrats: 140 Total donations to Republicans: 152 Total number of deployed troops donating to Obama and McCain: 160 Total number of Americn troops deployed abroad: about 370,000 Total number of deployed troops in Iraq: about 170,000 Total number of troops deployed in Afghanistan: about 20,000 Percentage of US troops deployed overseas donating at least $200 to presidential campaigns this year: 0.079%. Or, in simpler terms, less than one in ten thousand. Or, roughly, one in 12,500. So yeah, Obama has outraised McCain from US troops stationed overseas, by overwhelming ratios in both number and amount. But the actual numbers are so damned small as to be statistically irrelevant. And I think I kinda like that 99.9% of our troops aren't spending at least $200 on presidential campaigns. The only credible conclusion that one can draw from the data is that among a tiny, tiny subset of US troops serving overseas (probably made up of those with a highly paritsan political bent), Obama has raised more money than McCain at this point of the election cycle. As our own Saint Paul (who knows a thing or two about such statistical matters) put it in an e-mail: "That story is funny for a lot reasons. One being that the population of soldiers overseas who have donated to political campaign cannot in anyway be generalized to all soldiers or even all soldiers overseas. Those willing to give their money are almost certainly a small subset more inclined to be caught up in emotionalism and who probably would exhibit past voting behavior for Democrats. That small population size is supporting evidence of this (ain't that many soldiers who are prone to emotionalism or to be Democratic voters)." Labels: 2008 Election
Kathy Shaidle joins the growing list of national pundits who are now taking an interest in Minnesota's Senate race. Her piece at FrontPage Magazine is called Al Franken: Party of One:
What if a politician held a campaign event and nobody came? That's what almost happened to comedian-turned-Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken last week. In what sounds like a sketch he might have written for Saturday Night Live, only one voter showed up for Franken's roundtable on veterans issues in St. Cloud, Minnesota. It marked a particular low point in Franken's quixotic, controversial 18-month campaign to unseat unpopular Republican Senator Norm Coleman. The race should have been the Democrats' to lose, but a recent poll gives Colman a 15-point lead. Some party members are now questioning the wisdom of choosing Al Franken as their candidate. She also includes comments from a couple of local yokels who weigh in on Franken's chances. Labels: 2008 Election Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Jeff Rosenberg at TC Daily Liberal has been doing a precinct by precinct voter analysis of each of Minnesota's Congressional Districts based on results from the 2006 election. His most recent effort looks at CD5, which is my district.
I've received some grief in the past whenever I have expressed my thoughts that the GOP's prospects for any sort of success in CD5 are extremely dismal. But honestly, take a look at this map and tell me why I should think differently? All but a handful of precincts went for the Democrats by 60% or more of the vote. In two precincts the GOP was able to hold the DFL to "only" 50-52.4% of the vote. Those are the bright spots folks. Rosenberg observes that the key for Democrats statewide in CD5 is not winning (already a foregone conclusion) but turnout. Franken is going to easily win CD5. However, if he wants to win the election he's going to need win it with heavy voter turnout. Rosenberg also notes that Obama could potentially have a significant impact on how CD5 turns out, which could push Franken over the top. The only problem with that analysis is that polls show Franken consistently underperforming both his party and the Democratic presidential candidate. Rosenberg does have a map on voter volatility in the Fifth which shows that CD5 voters followed the party line in 2006. It will be interesting to see whether that holds true this year. Meanwhile, I'll cast my ballot in November knowing that with the exception of the US Senate race, it will once again be like adding a drop of red to a gallon of blue paint. In the Fifth, we're a long ways from being anywhere near purple. Labels: 2008 Election Monday, August 04, 2008
Is it just me or when you look at the font used for the name on John McCain's campaign plane...
 ...doesn't it just scream LOSER!??? There's some sort of vague malaise-inducing Seventies feel to it that comes across flat. I tried to go back and see if there was a historical correlation between lame planes and losers in presidential elections, but other than John Kerry's less-than-inspiring look, I couldn't find much on Google. Could be an interesting topic for an intrepid researcher. Labels: 2008 Election Tuesday, July 08, 2008
AK e-mails with the good news that Barack Obama was not one of those people who was "tricked" into buying a house he couldn't afford.
Just thought I'd give you my take as a mortgage banker on the Washington Post article about Mr. Obama's mortgage. Leave alone for the moment the actual purchase of Barak "Barry" H. Obama's personal mansion, a $2.3 million dollar property he purchased for $1.65 million assisted by financier Tony Rezko, now a convicted felon. Forget even the unique financial circumstances under which Mrs. Rezko "qualified" to finance the purchase of the adjacent $625k vacant dirt lot on a salary of thirty-seven grand a year. Rather, I am fascinated by the "in depth and detailed" story printed by the Washington Post (A3), regarding how the shrewd and astute Mr. B.H. Obama was in securing below market interest rate financing on his mortgage. To me it appears that the "reporter" simply regurgitated the official position of the Obama campaign's "(Spare) Change You Can Believe In!" press release. I don't know what was actually researched, but my analysis raises several distinct issues. After almost thirty years in the mortgage business, it's not the answers the client gives that matter, it's the questions those answers raise. With the proviso that current market conditions are skewed and severely distorted by the on-going credit-crisis/credit-crunch, here are some of the issues. 1. May, June and July of 2005 average Conforming (not Jumbo) mortgage rates ranged from 5.625%-5.875%. These rates ASSUME a 1.0% "origination fee" included in revenue stream. Eliminating (i.e. waiving) that revenue or fee, would result in at least a .25% higher rate. 2. Jumbo interest rates traditionally run about .25%-.375% above conforming rates. That would mean a 30yr fixed Jumbo from as low as 5.875%, and up to 6.25%. Again, this supposes origination fee revenue. Waiving 1% in fees would result in a rate between 6.125% and 6.375%. The expert(s) cited in the article claim 5.93-6.0% as comparable rates in that time-frame. No indication if those rates were available without origination fees, but the range is consistent with my hypothesis. 3. Jumbo and Super-Jumbo and Super-Super-Jumbo are names for categories of loan risk. Generally speaking, the higher the risk, the higher the price, or greater the down-payment, or a combination of both. Sen. Obama made a twenty-percent down-payment and borrowed 80%. More typical and appropriate down-payments would have been twenty-five to thirty percent, with 75% to 70% maximum loan-to-value. Even with the requisite larger down-payments, loans in excess of $1,000,000 will typically carry additional cost either in the form of discount points or slightly increased yield, suggesting a rate between 6.25% and 6.50%. 4. The standard 1% Origination fee is income to the lender, and a closing cost for the consumer. Under current tax code, origination fee is considered a finance charge and is 100% deductable on the purchase of your principal residence. Senator Barak appears to have passed on that $13,200.00 opportunity, preferring apparently to keep the extra cash in his pocket, in combination with a significantly reduced interest rate. In summation: the Honorable Barak Hussein Obama - junior Senator from Illinois, using his God-given talents and negotiating skills secured mortgage financing at least one-half percent below, and maybe as much as seven-eights below market-rate. That's not $300 per month, that's up to $30,000+ during his first six-year term. Moreover, permanently "buying-down" an interest rate 1/2% would typically cost about 1.5-2.0% discount points (also tax deductible. 1 point = 1 percent of loan). At 5.625% on a super-jumbo, 80% loan-to-value loan with no points and no origination fees, Illinois'' fiscally conservative representative saved somewhere between $13,200 and $39,600 on lender charges, another $100,000-$200,000 in cash up-front on reduced down-payment requirements, and $422 each and every month on his mortgage payment. Anyway you slice it, that's up to $250,000 "savings" for the up and coming Senator. Now none of this proves wrong-doing, or favoritism. It is perfectly legal for a lender to originate a loan for no income, or even at a loss depending on the circumstances of the loan or the characteristics of the borrower and property. That would be a straight forward business decision to deliver a higher level of customer service and client benefit in the interests of a future business opportunity or future relationship. One thing is for sure. He did get one hell of a deal! It's not the type of deal you or I could get, unless you had ACORN and Barney Frank on your side. And it directly contradicts Senator Barak's cover story about "competing offers". Nobody in my business competes to lose money, or pay to fund a loan. That's what appears to have happened in this instance, and the beneficiary appears to be the Democrat nominee for President of the United States. Labels: 2008 Election Monday, June 30, 2008
In the interests of our national sanity and mental health, I propose the following to all candidates, campaigns, consultants, cable teleivison talking heads, community organizers, staffers, pundits, pollsters, political talk radio hosts, policy wonks, political action committees, party hacks, bloggers, big-buck donors, and billionaire puppet-masters:
Let's give the country a much-needed break and take the month of July off from politicking and politics of any sort. No commercials, no speeches, no debates, no ridiculous rhetoric, no rubber chicken fundrasiers, no instant analysis, no mindless speculation, no gotcha journalism, no accusations of flip-flopping, no 24/7 coverage of the most inane of politcal matters, and no bumper-stickers. Let's spend the heart of the summer talking about barbecue, beer, baseball, beaches, and bombpops. Let's listen to music. Let's go to movies purely for fun. Let's read books (fiction) for pleasure. Let's all sit back and relax and not worry about the latest polls and who's up and who's down. For a month, let's all simply be Americans rather than Democrats or Republicans or progressives or conservatives or libertarians. Let's go about our daily lives without having to think, eat, drink, and breath politics and worry about whether your neighbor is a godless commie or a warmongering neocon. This month long moritorium will still allow plenty of time before November for us to debate to death each and every minute detail of difference between the candidates and explain again and again why this is the most important election in our lifetimes (just like the last one). You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. Labels: 2008 Election Friday, June 27, 2008
National political pundits, the McCain campaign, and panglossian local Republicans should note this article in today's WSJ (sub req) that confirms something that I've been trying to pound through people's heads for some time now; Minnesota is NOT A battleground state in this year's presidential election:
The McCain camp also apparently sees some opportunities in Minnesota, where it has run ads and where the senator has recently campaigned. Sen. McCain's best showing in the seven battleground states polled by Quinnipiac is in Florida, where he trails by four percentage points. In the new surveys of likely voters, Sen. Obama leads Sen. McCain by 52% to 39% in Wisconsin, by 54% to 37% in Minnesota, by 49% to 44% in Colorado and by 48% to 42% in Michigan. Quinnipiac polled 1,400 to 1,600 likely voters in each state. The polls have a margin of error of from 2.5% to 2.7%. That's a seventeen point margin people. Obama leads McCain among independents in Minnesota by twenty-one points and among whites by twelve. He's also ahead of McCain among Catholics here. This "battle" is over before it began and the McCain camp would be wise to employ their precious resources elsewhere. And for the last time, having Pawlenty on the ticket will NOT bring Minnesota into McCain. It would perhaps be a two-point swing at tops. However, from the same poll data there is a ray of light breaking through the Gopher State gloom: In Minnesota, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman is leading his Democratic challenger, comedian Al Franken, by 51% to 41%. The same respondents who favor Obama by seventeen have Franken down by ten? Now, that's something to smile about. Labels: 2008 Election Thursday, June 12, 2008
MEMORANDUM
TO: Republican operatives, pundits, bloggers, and the like RE: Obama's VP search team head resigns Just so you know, normal Americans--those who don't obsess about the meaningless inanities of politics 24/7--do not, I repeat DO NOT give a crap about whether one of the members of Barack Obama's VP search team received a couple of sweetheart loans from Countrywide. Trying to make hay of this "issue" and now trying to go after other members of Obama's VP search team is a waste of time and resources and is a perfect example of what normal people hate most about political campaigns. That is all. Labels: 2008 Election Wednesday, June 11, 2008
I see Susan Sarandon recently vowed to join the Hollywood diaspora if a Republican is elected President. Other members of this wandering tribe include Alec Baldwin, Robert Redford, and Eddie Vedder, all who vowed to leave if George W. Bush was elected. If John McCain wins in November, I expect Sarandon to follow in their footsteps - which have been firmly cemented in US soil since Bush's second inaugural.
I don't know if these people are liars, cowards, or were just playing the role of brave, principled dissenters against tyranny. (If the latter, bravo. It's the most convincing performance from any of them in decades.) Whether they stay or go, frankly, all of them are still wimps when it comes to Republican election threats, at least compared to Muriel Kennedy. May she rest in peace. The threat to move to somewhere better if things don't go your way politically does bring up an interesting point. These liberals have somewhere better to go. If the drive toward socialism isn't going fast enough for them in the US, they have 192 flavors of socialism they can run to elsewhere in the world. From the Canadian Maple Nut Ripple all the way to the North Korean Rocky Road. Pick your favorite level of state control, check some freedom at the border, and go nuts. Conservatives, on the other hand, have no other country to run to. Nowhere that incorporates economic freedom and individual liberty anywhere close to the USA. At least not since they closed down Hong Kong. This is our only chance. In other words, as a tall guy with a funny hat once wrote: We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. See, Lincoln knew it. It was the last hope 150 years ago, and it still is. The rest of the world knows this. I should say those in the rest of the world that recognize the value of economic freedom and individual liberty. (The Alec Baldwins of say, Yemen, are still outraged and self-righteous and are threatening to leave for Libya unless the Yemeni government does more to make sure wealth is more evenly distributed). That's why we have the teeming masses yearning to breath free waiting at the gate (at least until dark, at which point they climb over it). They want freedom, not the opportunity to obey the city of Minneapolis's latest dictate on how long you can idle your car. The last, best hope sounds like the place to be. Why does Susan Sarandon and Barack Obama want to make us like the rest of the world? Final thought on having no where to go. Maybe alleged movie "super villains" Hugo Drax and Dr. Evil had good reasons for their move to orbiting satellites of death. Since there was nowhere for an under appreciated capitalist to go on Earth, they had to invent their own societies in space. Of course, I condemn them for their various plans to terrorize, extort and dominate the planet. (These are not the Drax and Evil I came to know). But you have to admire their initiative. Labels: 2008 Election Monday, June 09, 2008
A story in today's WSJ details the love that Europeans are feeling for Obama (sub req):
While the race between Barack Obama and Republican rival John McCain remains close among U.S. voters, Europeans have given their hearts to the likely Democratic nominee. A poll in late May of five major countries -- Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia -- showed Sen. Obama getting 52% support, compared with 15% for Sen. McCain. In France, 65% favor Sen. Obama, compared with 8% for Sen. McCain, according to the poll for the United Kingdom's Daily Telegraph newspaper. Another poll published online Saturday in Belgium's Le Soir newspaper showed Belgians prefer Sen. Obama over Sen. McCain 74% to 12%. When I spent the last week in The Netherlands I had a chance to watch a good bit of Dutch, German, French and BBC news coverage of the US election campaign. And the fact that Obama has won the hearts of Europeans is hardly surprising given the amount of and positive nature of the coverage he received. It was pretty much all Obama all the time when it came time for reporting on the United States. Hillary made an occasional brief appearance, but I don't think I saw John McCain's face or heard his name all week. Obviously it was a big week for Obama and he was the story. But the extent of the focus on him was overwhelming. Casual observers in Europe might be forgiven for believing that he had already won the White House given the presumptive manner in which he was feted in the news. In the unlikely event that John McCain pulls an upset and defeats Obama in the general election, I can imagine a lot of Europeans waking up on November 5th and scratching their heads in amazement as they did in 2004 after Bush beat Kerry. Why did these crazy Americans not vote for the man that EVERYONE knew was going to be President? Labels: 2008 Election Friday, May 30, 2008
More fall out from the mocking of Hillary. This from the cleric who preceded the Rev. Pfleger on the stage at Trinity United:
As a woman, I was offended by Pfleger's mocking of Senator Clinton for showing emotion. Oh, boo hoo. Leave it to a woman to get all emotional over the mocking of someone else's emotions. All right, cheap shot there. But the Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite leaves herself open to that kind of criticism by shoving her gender in our faces. If it is an intolerable offense to stereotype one's behavior based on gender, why is she brandishing her gender as a special qualification to be offended? If you can produce the evidence that emotional response does not vary by gender, it doesn't matter who is delivering the message. Your gender confers no special status on assertions of the truth or the permission to be offended. I take Thistethwaite's words as a variation of the logical fallacy known as Appeal to Authority: the type of argument in logic consisting on basing the truth value of an assertion on the authority, knowledge, expertise, or position of the person asserting it. It is also known as argument from authority, argumentum ad verecundiam (Latin: argument to respect) or ipse dixit (Latin: he himself said it). It is one method of obtaining propositional knowledge, but a fallacy in regard to logic, because the validity of a claim does not follow from the credibility of the source. Democrats in particular are fond of this tactic. It can be used to elevate identity politics, or a perceived victim status, as the absolute moral authority on any issue and it can be used to silence rational debate in favor of emotionalism (see usage of "shut up you Chickenhawk"). My understanding of the rules of logic cannot confirm whether you can properly use yourself, or the presence of your two X chromosomes, as an appeal to authority. Perhaps Thistlethwaite's "as a woman" qualification can more properly be defined as an Appeal to Gynecology. Coincidentally, this particular logical fallacy is being used right here in Minnesota on another burning issue for the 2008 election. This from Rep. Betty McCollum (DFL-St. Paul): As a woman, a mother, a former teacher, and an elected official, I find this material completely unacceptable," McCollum said of Franken's piece, published in 2000 under the headline "Porn-O-Rama!" Wow, a quadruple play of special offense qualifications! It's the rare Appeal to Gynecology, Maternity, Pedagogy, and Democracy. I take her remarks to mean that since I'm not a women, mother, teacher or elected official, I have no right to be offended at Porn-O-Rama! Duly noted. We bow down before her well earned offense and make a note to review Chad the Elder's archives of old Playboy's for a guilt free reading of that article. (He assures me he only reads Playboy Magazine for the Al Franken articles). Breaking news, Rep. McCollum released another statement on this issue: "As a parent and an aunt, and talking to other parents, people are very concerned about the type of Internet use that's out there, and how it has a potentially harmful effect on children" As an aunt? Yes, it's the Appeal to Sibling Fertility! I qualify for that one! And I look forward to proudly standing next to Betty McCollum in the upcoming March of the Righteously Offended to Condemn Al Franken. Labels: 2008 Election
Theological separated at birth.
Galatians 6:7: Make no mistake: God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sows Associated Press headline 5/30: Obama distances himself from priest who mocked Clinton As sins go in the Democrat party, that's a pretty big meatball. It's going to require substantial penance and sacrifice. I suggest forcing him to read this in its entirety. Labels: 2008 Election Thursday, May 29, 2008
At NRO, Robert Ferrigno imagines a post-election meeting between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Lance:
Ahmadinejad held up a fist. "We currently have eight thousand centrifuges producing weapons-grade plutonium, and that's not counting the ones I can't tell you about." He raised one finger. "We train Hezbollah, which has killed thousands of Americans and Israelis." He raised another finger. "We supply upgraded IEDs to Iraqi freedom fighters to kill your countrymen." He raised a third finger. "We've promised to wipe Israel off the map." A fourth finger. "And Obama considers us no threat? How dare he?" "I never thought of it that way. He's totally disrespecting you, dude." "You understand, Lance. Try telling that to the Grand Ayatollah, see where that gets you." "Someplace bad I bet, right?" "Your new president is a creation of the CIA," said Ahmadinejad, expansive now. He stretched out his slippered feet, tugged at his wispy beard. "Obama pretends to be the naïf with the glittering smile, the schoolmarm asking children not to run in the hall: Let's talk things over. Let's turn the thermostat down. Let's share your toys. Let's be friends." "Won't you be my neighbor?" sing-songed Lance. Def worth reading the whole thing. Labels: 2008 Election Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Ron Paul to visit before state GOP convention
The Republican presidential race is on the verge of heating back up in Minnesota. More than three months after the state's precinct caucuses, a showdown is in the offing at the state GOP convention in Rochester this weekend. Long-shot insurgent candidate Ron Paul plans to speak to his supporters Friday morning, just before the convention begins. Then, those supporters hope to nab as many of the 14 national convention delegate spots that remain up for grabs as they can. Yesterday, I received a letter in the mail from something called "Friends of the Minnesota Conservative Delegate Team" (or FMinnConDelT for short). It was a warning of the dangers poised by Ron Paul supporters attempting to "thwart the will of the majority" at this week's GOP State Convention in Rochester by electing pro-Paul delegates to the national convention. It asked people to do three things to prevent this: 1. Show up at the convention. The location of this year's convention and the fact that there are no endorsement battles has created something of a perfect storm for Paul supporters to attempt a floor putsch. Rochester ain't exactly a visitor hotbed and delegates from Northern & Western Minnesota and the Twin Cities may decide that it's not really worth the drive, especially with our current gas prices. Politics is all about showing up and if more mainstream Republicans don't, the door will be open for Paul's people. 2. Vote for the MinnConDelT slate of candidates for the national delegate and alternate positions. Most of the names on this list are familiar to party wonks like JB Doubtless. Pawlenty, Coleman, Seifert, Pat Anderson, Emmer, etc. One name that I was little surprised to see was that of Michael Brodkorb, our NARN colleague and proprietor of Minnesota Democrats Exposed. It's great to see Michael getting recognition for all his hard work and he's definitely got my vote. If my seat doesn't get snatched by a Paulite that is. 3. Reject the attempts of Paul supporters to change convention rules and procedures. I've been more open and willing to engage with Ron Paul supporters than many within the GOP. I admire their energy and enthusiasm and respect their viewpoints on most issues even if I disagree with many of their policy prescriptions. I liked having Ron Paul at the Republican primary debates and believe that including dissent from the right will only serve to make the party stronger in the long run. However, the votes have now been cast and the reality is that while Paul raised an impressive amount of money, he was able to attract only minimal support among Republicans. His voice and his views were heard and a majority of the GOP decided that they weren't the ones they wanted their standard bearer to promote. It was a nice run, but it's over. Paul's supporters should show up at the convention and should continue to raise awareness of the issues that matter most to them. But to try to get delegates and alternates elected to the national convention through a back door process by jamming the convention is only going to serve to further divide the party. Sometimes Democrats go too far with their rhetoric about the "voice of the people" being heard and people being "disenfranchised," but when the vast majority of Republican voters and caucus goers across the nation have rejected Ron Paul, it would be a travesty for a minority of activists (no matter how vocal) to impose their will at the convention. That doesn't mean they won't try and that should make for a much more "interesting" convention than had been expected. The Northern Alliance Radio Network will be covering the goings on beginning Thursday night on AM1280 The Patriot when King and Michael kick things with a two-hour broadcast from 5pm-7pm. I'll be joining the Final Word duo on Friday night from 5pm-7pm and on Saturday we'll have our full slate of shows from 11am-5pm (although I believe that Mitch and Ed will be in studio rather than on the convention floor). Labels: 2008 Election Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The WSJ editorializes on McCain's climate change plan (in the print version it was titled "Obama-lite"):
The latest stop on John McCain's policy tour came at an Oregon wind-turbine manufacturer, where the topic was--what else?--the Senator's plan to address climate change. This is one of those issues where Mr. McCain indulges his "maverick" tendencies, which usually means taking the liberal line. That was the case yesterday, no matter how frequently he claimed his approach was "market based." In fact, if "the market" is your favored mechanism, Mr. McCain's endorsement of a "cap and trade" system is the worst choice for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. The Bush Administration has pursued one option, which combines voluntary measures with subsidies for "clean" alternatives. Since 2001 under this approach, U.S. net carbon emissions have fallen by 3%--that is, by more than all but four countries in cap-and-trade-bound Europe. At the other end of the market spectrum is a straight carbon tax, which would at least distribute costs more efficiently. It would also force politicians to be honest about--and take responsibility for--the true price of their global-warming posturing. Then there's cap and trade, which Mr. McCain has backed for years and would, as he put it with some understatement, "change the dynamic of our energy economy." He noted that Americans have a genius for problem-solving but continued, "The federal government can't just summon these talents by command--only the free market can draw them out." To translate: His plan is "market based" insofar as it requires an expensive, invasive government bureaucracy to interfere with the market. That much pretty sums up that feelings that I had yesterday when reading about McCain's plan. The Journal editorial closes by questioning McCain's understanding of the economics of climate change and reminding Republicans for the 7,834th time that--no matter what the issue is--they can't out-Dem the Dems: Given the distance between Mr. McCain's rhetoric and the policy reality, we wonder if he even knows what he's proposing. This is of a piece with his approach to many domestic issues, where the policy contradictions and cul-de-sacs overwhelm his professed political convictions. The McCain campaign believes his global-warming plan will appeal to independents and young people, as well as separate the Senator from President Bush. But he will never be green enough for the climate-change fundamentalists. The Obama campaign and Democrats were already dinging Mr. McCain yesterday for half-measures. His concessions won't help him much in November, but they will make his governing decisions in 2009 that much more difficult if by some chance he does win. When will they ever learn? Labels: 2008 Election Friday, May 09, 2008
A couple of points from a quick perusal of Michelle Obama's May 2nd stump speech.
I know that she's a very intelligent woman, but I'm not sure if she really gets irony. They move the bar. They raise it up. They shift it to the left and to the right. It's always just quite out of reach. And that's a little bit of what Barack has been experiencing. The bar is constantly changing for this man. Raise the money? Not enough. Build an organization? Not enough. Win a whole bunch of states? Not the right states. You got to win certain states. So the bar has been shifting and moving in this race, but the irony is, the sad irony is that that's exactly what's happening to most Americans in this country. The bar is shifting and moving on people all the time. And folks are struggling like never before, working harder than ever, believing that their hard work will lead to some reward, some payoff. But what they find is that they get there and the bar has changed, things are different, wasn't enough. So you have to work even harder. Even if what she says about all that confounded bar moving is true, is it in any way ironic? And see what happens when you live in a nation where the vast majority of Americans are struggling every day to reach an ever-shifting and moving bar, then what happens in that nation is that people do become isolated. I have to agree with her here. It's been my experience that when you're struggling to reach an ever-shifting and moving bar, you do become isolated. Once the bar starts moving, you usually find yourself cut off and booted out on the street in no time. If you're lucky, one of your friends will come out and pick you up from the sidewalk, but you're often on your own. By the way, she uses the word "bar" no less than thirty-one times in the speech. Unfortunately, it's never in the right context. Labels: 2008 Election
There was much talk this week about the special election in Louisiana's Sixth District, where Republican Woody Jenkins was knocked off by Don Cazayoux. The district had been in Republican hands for thirty-four years and many pundits divined that this election's outcome was a preview of a coming Republican debacle in the fall. In today's WSJ, Kimberly Strassel says that while there is a lesson for Republicans in Jenkins' defeat, it's not that all hope is lost:
Yet Mr. Jenkins was also a divisive firebrand. He was infamous for carrying around plastic fetuses, to demonstrate his opposition to abortion. He'd previously landed in a weird entanglement with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. This history made even conservatives fidgety, and crowded out anything Mr. Jenkins had to say on issues. More debilitating to the Jenkins campaign was a strong whiff of the ethical problems that have plagued Republicans. A labor union ran ads noting Mr. Jenkins's had seen 19 tax liens filed against him and his broadcasting company since 1990. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee pointed out that a murky Jenkins charity had paid him consulting fees, paid rent to his company, and paid more than a half-a-million dollars to his wife. He'd been in hot water over campaign contributions, and voted against financial disclosure. Democrats, meanwhile, have realized it's more important to win than to impose liberal litmus tests on candidates. Mr. Jenkins's opponent, Don Cazayoux, was pro-life and pro-gun. He had nice things to say about John McCain, and rarely mentioned Mr. Obama or Hillary Clinton. A self-styled "John Breaux Democrat," he focused on education and health care. As the polls deteriorated, the National Republican Congressional Committee ran desperate ads attempting to link Mr. Cazayoux to Mr. Obama. The comparison was ludicrous, and Louisiana voters knew it (even if the national press corps didn't). It failed to save Mr. Jenkins from a three percentage-point loss. Clearly in Jenkins case, there were problems with both the message and the messenger. In contrast to another GOP candidate in Louisiana: He might have also directed those listening to another Louisiana election this weekend, one that didn't get nearly the attention. The district is also conservative; Mr. Bush won 71% in 2004. The real difference was the campaign. The 43-year-old Republican, Steve Scalise, had pinpointed today's GOP vulnerabilities, and ran an anti-status-quo campaign. His focal point was wasteful spending, and he touted his legislation to reform Louisiana's earmark process. Another hallmark was ethics reform and his fight against public corruption. He talked up competitive private health care, lower taxes and school choice. Republicans looking for an Obama doppelganger would have been better served by his Democratic competitor, Gilda Reed. She campaigned on immediate withdrawal from Iraq and "universal" health care. Trade came in for a bashing, as did secret ballots in union-organizing elections. Ms. Reed explained she was personally pro-life, but felt abortion needed to remain legal. Her cause became that of the liberal left, with the Daily Kos hosting an online fund-raiser on her behalf. Mr. Scalise won 75% of the vote. Strassel summarizes what the real lessons of both campaigns should be for the GOP: With Democrats actively recruiting conservative candidates, it's no longer good enough for the GOP names to fall back on cultural credentials, to demagogue immigration, or to simply promise lower taxes. Voters care about the size of government, but they are equally worried about the cost of doctor visits and gas prices. The winners will be those who explain the merits of a private health-care reform, who talk about vouchers, who push for energy production. And given its reputation on ethics, it's clear the GOP has to recruit Mr. Cleans, who also make voters believe they are more interested in solving problems than bringing home pork. It's almost a cliché these days to say that politicians can't just be against something, they have to be for something, but Republican candidates need to beaten over the head with that simple message every day between now and November 4th. Labels: 2008 Election Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Ross Douthat is not impressed with the 95/10 plan:
You can read up on the 95/10 plan here, on the website of Democrats for Life. They describe it as "a comprehensive package of federal legislation and policy proposals that will reduce the number of abortions by 95% in the next 10 years." I would describe it as a grab-bag of modest proposals, some of them creditable, that might reduce the abortion rate by 10 percent over 95 years. Or with the chances of Obama supporting it: And while I would be delighted to see Obama endorse the plan, since it's always nice to have pro-choice politicians on the record suggesting that abortion is a bad thing and we ought to have less of it, I have a tough time seeing it happening. Unlike Hillary Clinton, whose gender and record and reputation offers her enough maneuvering room to occasionally play the "safe, legal and never" card, I suspect that Obama simply doesn't have enough feminist cred to even tiptoe off the liberal reservation on abortion. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong. The problem for Democrats with abortion is that a sizable chunk of the hardcore party faithful not only believe that abortion should be legal, but that there isn't anything wrong with it. If a group of pro-life Republicans proposed a "comprehensive package of federal legislation and policy proposals that will reduce the number of abortions by 95% in the next 10 years," the feminist wing of the Democratic Party would be screaming bloody murder about how it was infringing on the "reproductive rights" on women. Labels: 2008 Election Thursday, April 17, 2008
An editorial in yesterday's Wall Street Journal looks at John McCain's economics speech (some good, some bad) and highlights one of the major problems that I've long had with McCain:
John McCain gave his big economic speech in Pittsburgh Tuesday, and many of the policies he proposed are laudable--the highlight being an optional flat tax for individuals. The weakness--especially heading into a general election amid a struggling economy--is that his pudding still has no theme. Being able to provide a guiding economic narrative is not just a matter of having a catchy soundbite, a la the "ownership society." It's essential for two reasons. First, it offers voters an explanation of how we got to the current moment, which means why the economy is struggling. The two Democrats already have their story: The 1990s were a golden age for the middle class that has been ruined by Republican tax cuts that rewarded only rich lenders and speculators. Mr. McCain needs a different policy narrative. Second, a guiding philosophy shows voters that future decisions will be made according to a set of principles they can understand. Example: A month ago, Mr. McCain gave a speech saying it wasn't the government's obligation to rescue those who took out loans they couldn't afford. Then last week he, ahem, supplemented that view by supporting an FHA-guaranteed loan-restructuring program in what looked to be a bid to compete with Democrats in the housing bailout auction. Without some guiding principles, voters are left to wonder whether Mr. McCain's next lurch will be to the populist left, where his instincts sometimes run, or to the fiscally conservative right, where he is also sometimes found. McCain has ideas--some good (a stronger military, pro-life), some bad (campaign finance reform, immigration reform)--but doesn't appear to have any underlying political philosophy that guides his decision making on various issues. As the editorial points out, McCain's past words and actions aren't a much of guide to how he will approach future issues. Now in fairness to McCain, after nearly eight years in office I don't know if anyone could articulate what Georg W. Bush's underlying political philosophy is either. But with the Democrats already enjoying many advantages heading into this election and with both of their candidates' philosophy pretty clear to voters--government is the answer--McCain needs to set forth a philosophical foundation that offers voters both an alternative to the Dems and a vision of what a future McCain presidency would offer. Labels: 2008 Election Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Lisa Simpson to Montgomery Burns at a staged campaign event at the Simpson household:
"Mr. Burns: your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?'' and... ...Dean Singleton, current president of the AP, to Barak Obama at the AP's annual luncheon yesterday in Washington: Senator Obama, today's event is sold out. Thank you. You have been drawing large crowds wherever you travel. What's your take on the sense of excitement around your candidacy? It should be noted that Lisa Simpson was forced to pander to Mr. Burns, while Dean Singleton apparently was acting on his own volition. John Hinderaker has more on how the cynical, skeptical, hard-boiled media types at the AP greeted Senator Obama yesterday. He really walked into a den of kittens there. In fairness, Dana Milbank actually thinks that Obama was treated harsher than John McCain at the AP events, which doesn't speak well of the bite of our media "watchdogs." Rich Somerville has a more nuanced perspective and notes that the size and makeup of the crowds make comparisons tricky: Since I was able to snag a front-row seat for that session, I had dibs on the same seat for McCain. There was no security check, either for me or the people who arrived following the panel session to hear McCain. The room was packed, for sure, but by Washington Convention Center standards it wasn't that huge of a room. By contrast, the AP luncheon where Obama spoke was held in the cavernous main ballroom, and even with "by invitation only" tickets costing $75 each (for rubbery chicken), the event was sold out--for the first time in AP's 162-year history, according to the current president of AP, who happens to be Dean Singleton. I am no good at crowd estimates, but my guess is that at least three times as many people attended the lunch featuring Obama. Not only that, but everyone at the lunch had to go through airport-type security, including random wanding. I can only surmise that it's because Obama has had Secret Service protection for a while (no doubt because of threats), while McCain so far has refused it, although he reluctantly has said that he would have discussions this week about accepting protection. I will note, by the way, that those at the Obama luncheon were not all editors and publishers. I saw many tables set aside for AP employees, and because the newspaper trade show--NEXPO--is being held at the same time, there were many vendors and their spouses there. Labels: 2008 Election Friday, April 11, 2008
One of the most common populist refrains spouted by Democratic candidates in recent years is, "We need a president who looks out for Main Street instead of Wall Street." Said refrain is usually met by broad applause on the campaign trail.
I wonder how the crowds who eat up this meaningless rhetoric would react if they knew which candidates were benefitting the most from political donations from the Wall Street crowd. Financial Industry Pours on Campaign Donations (WSJ-sub req): Data gathered by the Center For Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan Washington group whose opensecrets.org Web site tracks political giving, reckons that the banking-and-investment industry is giving nearly twice as much to Democrats as to Republicans in the 2008 cycle. Based on records from 2007 through January, the center calculates that the Democratic Party has raked in about $15.1 million from employees and political action committees of banks and investment companies, compared to $7.7 million for Republicans. The numbers for March, a traditionally heavy month for campaign fund-raisers, have yet to be reported. In the 2004 cycle, the center said, the campaign cash was more equally distributed, with Republicans hauling in $22 million compared with $19.5 million for Democrats. The race for president follows this pattern, with Democratic candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois greatly outraising Arizona Sen. John McCain, the pending Republican nominee. Sen. McCain raised about $3 million from employees of securities and investment firms through February compared with $6.6 million for Sen. Clinton and $6.7 million for Sen. Obama. But Sen. McCain may be able to close the gap: According to names released by the campaigns and gathered by Whitehouseforsale.org, a research Web site maintained by the nonprofit, nonpartisan group Public Citizen, Sen. McCain counts an army of Wall Street executives among his most prolific fund-raisers, suggesting he will be able to tap them in the future. If McCain does receive a windfall of contributions from Wall Street, expect to see it prominently noted in the media. The haul taken in so far by Hillary and Obama--the candidates for the common man? Well, that doesn't really fit the narrative you see. I'm not against companies and individuals giving to the candidates of their choice and I don't have a problem with candidates accepting said donations. But if would be nice if the Dems (and even McCain on occasion) could give their cynical Wall Street bashing a rest. No, I'm not holding my breath. Labels: 2008 Election Tuesday, April 01, 2008
It's not every day that you come across the name Samuel Tilden. Which made yesterday particularly unusual as I happened upon a reference to Mr. Tilden two times in a matter of a few hours. The first was a piece in the LA Times by Andrew Gumbel called Bare-knuckle politics:
It happened in 1824, when the House threw the race to John Quincy Adams even though Andrew Jackson won more votes and more electoral college delegates. It happened in 1876, when carpetbagger Republican administrations in Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina refused to recognize the victory of the Democrat Samuel Tilden and essentially threw the election to his Republican rival, Rutherford B. Hayes. The second was in a post by our own Saint Paul on Jack Morris' ignorance of the Electoral College: Taking the hatchet to this foundation of American democracy is typically the province of segments of the Left still seething over the electoral college loss of Al Gore to George W Bush in 2000. Until then, nobody much cared about the electoral college, let alone considered it "the most important thing they would change in the government," save for those few still holding a candle for Samuel Tilden. Two mentions of Samuel Tilden in one day? Rather uncanny. The two pieces also shared something else in common: a misunderstanding or ignorance of American democracy. Since Gumbel is the Los Angeles correspondent of the Independent of London and the author of "Steal This Vote: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America," I assume that he understands the electoral college a little better than Jack Morris. But when Gumbel writes about democracy and this Democratic primary, he expresses a common misconception: At any time other than in the midst of a heated electoral battle, it's hard to imagine that Nancy Pelosi would attract much controversy by opining that the Democratic Party's nominee for president should be the candidate who wins the most votes. The House speaker has done just that, last week drawing an angry backlash from wealthy supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Most Americans -- presumably including the 26 million who have participated with unprecedented enthusiasm in the Democratic primaries and caucuses -- still view this country as a representative democracy. Take a look at history, though, and the power of the popular vote in determining the next occupant of the White House starts to look a lot less absolute. And: It shouldn't be this way, of course. Democracy should be about the will of the people, pure and simple, as Pelosi has pointed out. The problem with the views of Pelosi, Gumbel, and many others is that there is no requirement that the process that political parties use to pick their candidates be in any way democratic. If the big D Democrats decide to let a select group of bisexual, pro-abortion, pacifistic, eco-conscious teachers commune together in a smoke, fragrance, and gun-free room and pick their party's next presidential candidate, it wouldn't mean the end of American democracy as we know it. The way that each political party chooses its candidates is up to that party to determine and the "will of the people" need not play any role in it at all. By the way, further research on Samuel J. Tilden reveals that he might not feel all that comfortable in today's Democratic Party: A political reformer, he was a Bourbon Democrat who worked closely with the New York City business community, led the fight against the corruption of Tammany Hall, and fought to keep taxes low. Mister, we could use a Dem like Samuel Tilden again. Labels: 2008 Election Thursday, March 27, 2008
Ralphie points us to a Stephen Spruiell review of an Obama ad that doesn't seem like much of a change from the same old politics at National Review Online:
In the days leading up to the March 4 Ohio primary, Barack Obama's presidential campaign aired a TV ad that featured a man named Steven Schuyler standing in front of a Delphi Packard Electric plant in Warren, Ohio. In the ad, Schuyler says he worked for Delphi, an automotive supplier, for 13 years until NAFTA enabled the company to ship his job to Mexico. "Barack Obama was against NAFTA," Schuyler says, adding, "We need a president that will bring work into this country." The Delphi ad might qualify as the most deceptive of the 2008 race. First, Delphi did not exist as an independent company when Congress passed NAFTA in 1993. It was part of General Motors until it was spun off as an independent supplier in 1999. Second, foreign competition did not drive the company to eliminate American jobs. It declared bankruptcy in 2005 because the legacy labor costs it inherited from GM made it impossible to compete against other U.S.-based suppliers. Third, workers at the Warren, Ohio plant were offered generous buyouts and early-retirement packages. Its employees were not just kicked to the street. When Delphi became an independent company in 1999, it inherited GM's high-wage, high-benefit autoworkers' union contracts. Addressing reporters after Delphi declared bankruptcy in 2005, then-CEO Robert S. "Steve" Miller explained, "other U.S.-based suppliers, many of which were organized by the same unions...were paying less than half the automaker wages and benefits [that Delphi was paying]." Contrary to Obama's ad, domestic competition played a bigger role in Delphi's downfall than did competition from Mexico. But other than that, the ad was an articulate, refreshing call for change. Labels: 2008 Election Saturday, March 15, 2008
In today's WSJ, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford calls on fiscal conservatives to get off the bench:
There is a yawning gulf between the viewpoints of Mr. McCain and those of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Nowhere is this more evident than on the critical issue of the steady collapse of our government's financial house. Since 2000, the federal budget has increased 72%, to $3.1 trillion from $1.8 trillion. The national debt is now $9 trillion -- more than the combined GDP of China, Japan and Canada. Add in Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security commitments, and as a nation we are staring at more than a $50 trillion hole -- an invisible mortgage of $450,000 for every American family. Hope alone won't carry us through the valley of the shadow of debt. The fact that neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. Obama has made cost-cutting a part of their political vocabulary is a clear indication that they would increase spending. In fact, Mrs. Clinton has already proven skillful at snagging pork. Over the past few years alone, she has attached some $2.2 billion in earmarks to federal spending bills. Mr. McCain has asked for exactly $0 in earmarks. And while Mr. Obama's oratorical skills have been inspiring, his proposals would entail roughly the same $800 billion in new government spending that Mrs. Clinton proposes. To his credit, Mr. Obama admits that his spending proposals will take more than three clicks of his heels to fund. He would pay for his priorities with a bevy of tax increases which he hopes taxpayers won't notice. But taxpayers will notice. Mr. Obama plans to raise taxes on capital gains, dividends and corporate profits. He wants to hike estate taxes by 50%. And he wants to eliminate the cap on payroll taxes. These tax hikes would increase the burden borne by individuals and decrease the competitiveness of our economy. I was elected to Congress in 1994 as part of a Republican Revolution that captured control of both the House and Senate. A number of us tried to apply the brakes to the Washington spending train. We didn't succeed. Six years later, I left Washington convinced that only a chief executive willing to use the presidential bully pulpit could bring spending under control. Now, in John McCain, the GOP has a standard-bearer who would be willing to turn the power of the presidency toward controlling federal spending. Mr. McCain has one of the best spending records in Congress, and has never shied away from criticizing government pork-barrel spending. A good pitch for McCain and for Sanford in the VP slot. Labels: 2008 Election Wednesday, March 05, 2008
According to an e-mail sent out by MoveOn.org, John McCain received much more than just the Republican endorsement with his victories last night:
It's official: John McCain is the Republican nominee. That means that as of today, his No. 1 priority will be attacking our candidates. He's already accusing both Clinton and Obama of wanting to "surrender" to terrorists because they want to end the disastrous occupation in Iraq. And now his attacks will get much louder: He's got access to enormous party resources, including the whole Republican noise machine. Senator McCain, here's a certificate signifying that you are now officially the Republican nominee and of course the keys to the noise machine. We just changed the oil, checked the tire pressure, and filled up the gas tank. Dubya put a lot of miles on in '04, but we've got it tuned up and running smooth again. You'll be thrilled when you turn 'er over and hear that engine roar. Have a pleasant drive sir. Labels: 2008 Election Friday, February 29, 2008
From some of the crew that brought you MST3K (the funnier, less politically correct host et al), free political riffs from Riff Trax.
Labels: 2008 Election Tuesday, February 26, 2008
A lot Republicans have begun comparing Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter, especially in foreign policy. In today's WSJ, Stephen Hayes warns that he may have more in common with another president:
Throughout his campaign, Reagan fought off charges that his candidacy was built more on optimism than policies. The charges came from reporters and opponents. John Anderson, a rival in the Republican primary who ran as an independent in the general election, complained that Reagan offered little more than "old platitudes and old generalities." Conservatives understood that this Reagan-as-a-simpleton view was a caricature (something made even clearer in several recent books, particularly Reagan's own diaries). That his opponents never got this is what led to their undoing. Those critics who giggled about his turn alongside a chimp were considerably less delighted when Reagan won 44 states and 489 electoral votes in November. One Reagan adviser had predicted such a win shortly after Reagan had become the de facto nominee the previous spring. In a memo about the coming general election contest with Jimmy Carter, Richard Whalen wrote Reagan's "secret weapon" was that "Democrats fail to take him very seriously." Are Republicans making the same mistake with Barack Obama? Hayes goes on to caution Republicans against assuming that there is no substance behind Obama's words. Labels: 2008 Election Monday, February 25, 2008
We want to extend our congratulations to our NARN colleague Captain Ed for landing a new gig:
Today brings exciting news and an end to a time in my life that has proven far more successful than I ever dreamed. Beginning on March 1, I will begin working for Michelle Malkin, a friend, mentor, and writer I have long admired. She has offered me a position as writer at Hot Air, and my blogging will appear exclusively there. Isn't the mentor usually the older one? Just askin'. With every new beginning comes some other beginning's end: That means that I will close out Captain's Quarters sometime in March. No more Captain's Quarters? This is like finding out that your neighborhood bar is closing and the owner will be working at Applebee's (or Krabby O Mondays). But I'm sure the tips are much better and Ed has made a wise move. I am a little worried though that all the excitement may have caused him a moment or two of light-headedness. How else to explain this post on VP possibilities for McCain? Pawlenty and Sanford both give gentle but firm opposition to McCain's efforts on both in this interview -- which normally would signal a presidential nominee to avoid them as running mates. However, in this instance both men could make excellent emissaries to the conservative wing of the party. They can lay out the thinking conservative's case for enthusiasm in McCain better than anyone else, and at the same time lay out their own cases for higher public office in the post-McCain phase. It promises a means to influence in the next administration and grooming more palatable conservatives for the future. I read this sort of thing about Pawlenty being a good conservative in the national media all the time and I'm become accustomed to it. But Ed lives here in Minnesota and has for some time. He should know better than to traffic in the conventional (and very incorrect) wisdom on T-Paw. Memo to national political pundits (and apparently Ed): Governor Pawlenty is not a rock-ribbed conservative by any means. In general, I like Pawlenty and think he's done a decent job holding the line against the excesses of the DFL. I can't even imagine what a nightmare it would be to have Mike Hatch leading the state right now. But make no mistake about it, Pawlenty is not the guy to warm the hearts of conservatives disaffected by having McCain on the top of the ticket. On many issues that most rile conservatives, Pawlenty shares the same views as McCain. Adding him to the ticket as VP will not bring any measure of ideological balance. Now Sanford, well that's another story entirely. Labels: 2008 Election Friday, February 22, 2008
Last night, Clinton and Obama faced off in what I believe was the NINETEENTH Democratic debate so far this primary season. While having it narrowed down to two candidates made it far more watchable than the earlier circus act debates with multiple performers (including clowns), after I sat through a good part of it I had to ask myself what the point was. Did it or any of the many many debates that we've had so far for both parties really matter? Looking back at the slew of debates, I can only come with two that were significant in any way. The first was Clinton's stumble on drivers licenses for illegal immigrants in late October. Looking back on it now, you can view it as the beginning of her Great Unraveling. But would that unraveling have happened anyway if the debate had never taken place? I would think so. Maybe not in the same manner or at the same pace, but it seems to have been inevitable. The other debate that likely had an impact was the Saturday night showdown in New Hampshire (January 5th) where Obama appeared snarky when he made a jab at Clinton's likability be saying, "They like you well enough." That and Hillary's emotional breakdown a few days later were probably what sparked her comeback win in New Hampshire. Looking back at it now, that win seems pretty inconsequential in the bigger picture. It kept her alive to fight another day, but hasn't stopped Obama from the verge of winning the nomination. Did any of the Republican debates matter a whit? Offhand, I can't think of one that did. Some people have attributed Huckabee's rise to his debate performances, but frankly I was never really all that impressed. I think he gathered support from his work on the ground and would have risen in the GOP ranks with or without the debates. So what's the point of having them? As far as I can tell, in their current format there isn't one. The questions asked are usually irrelevant or meaningless. Very rarely do the candidates ever answer the question asked anyway. They come in to the debates with these canned answers (and joke lines) and wait for a question that's even remotely related to unleash them. And rarely do the moderators follow up and make them answer the question directly. It makes for a very frustrating experience for the viewer. You get 90% talking point fluff and 10% actual content. Couldn't the time, effort, and energy of everyone involved be spent in a better manner? One final debate point; the Obama applause lines are getting ridiculous. On my way to the debate tonight (Applause) I stopped by the store (Applause) and bought some milk, (Rising applause) eggs, (Thunderous applause) and bread. (Standing ovation--ear shattering, deafening applause) You love him. We get it. Just try to be a little more judicious with your public adoration please. UPDATE-- Jason e-mails to add: Great post on the debates. But I think the bigger question is in regards to campaigning in genera |
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