GOP May Gain Control Of VA Senate. Also, InstaVision Offers A Sarah Palin Tease UPDATE: A Sarah Palin ‘Vacuum’?

Posted on | November 10, 2011 | 44 Comments

by Smitty

Jason Kenney at Bearing Drift reports that canvassing is done in Spotsylvania for the 17th Senatorial District, with a 226 vote margin for the GOP hopeful. This is good news, and will hopefully lead to results substantial enough to reach the misguided voters in Ohio.

Speaking of misguided, voters in my VA Senatorial District love the Democrat incumbent, and also hate bow ties as much as Paco. Somebody needs to tell Paco that bow ties are as traditional, masculine, conservative, squared-away and action-ready as the fedora.

For me, the neck tie is all about conformity. One calls a meeting at the office. Even when tarted up with a knot from Matrix Reloaded, one is still encumbered with the fact that the bulk of the chaps in the room are wearing, *yawn* neck ties.

And so you step out. You acquire a fetching bit of silk from Carrot & Gibbs or Beau Ties, master the art of doing at the neck what you’ve been doing on the shoe your whole life (for truly, anyone wearing a cheater is worthy of as much disdain as Paco has poured upon the humble bow tie) and wear it to the meeting.

Now, you have made a statement! Yes, you say, I understand this is business, and we have to comport ourselves to a certain standard. If you’re not as rich as Richard Branson, you cannot flit about wearing a cravat and walking into the meeting like you’re walking onto a yacht. Yet you have not been so quotidian as to wear Yet Another Necktie.

People notice. “How do you tie one of those?” they ask. To which you gently reply, “The word ‘bow’ is an indicator.” Quite a few lads are bow-tie curious. It is not an occasion to condescend if they indicate the desire to man-up and have a go at the bow. Rather, encourage.

The bow tie, like sound conservative principles, may yet help save these United States.

For some good follow-on wonkery, do watch Michael Barone on Instavision. Toward the end, Insty throws out the Palin bait. Barone gives the notion of Sarah pulling a Reagan a solid ‘Meh’. Too late for the early state primaries. Intellectually, I’m in full agreement. In some emotional dimension, it would be momentarily cool, but remember this: Barack was elected with a lot of irrational exuberant rah-rah, as well. Repeat after me: There Is No Political Savior. If you want the U.S. to turn around, it starts with you, not candidate X, Y, or Z.

Although, pot-stirrer that I am, note this: I can’t help but think that if X, Y, or Z persuaded Sarah to join the ticket as VP, it would be an astounding win-win. That candidate would gather her phenomenal grass-roots support, and she would garner the executive résumé bullets. Furthermore, after eight years of X, Y, or Z, Sarah steps up to President (the way St. Albert of Gore did not). If you actually want to make course alterations for the ship of state away from the current European-style Welfare State Debacle heading, having Sarah on board would be an awesome way to go.

But who listens to me?

Update: Quigley at The Hill, emphasis mine:

Newt Gingrich rises, in opposition to MSM. He appears the best option now to face Romney. But is his appeal broad enough, and can the professor appeal to plain folk? That is the question and that is the question that Sarah Palin should be asking this morning. Possibly she created “the vacuum on the right” when she got off the bus and took it back to Alaska. As per last night it is safe to say there is still time to get in simply because nothing else is working. And the failure of the other contenders works positively in her favor.

I don’t know that it’s a bad thing for conservatives to get past the ‘quest for a rock star’. Nor do I blame Sarah Palin for looking at the banal nature of politics and opting for a role with a lower ‘ick’ factor.

Sarah will, I trust, prayerfully carry out the Divine will for her life as best she can, which is about all that can be asked of anyone.

Category: Blogging, Virginia

Comments

44 Responses to “GOP May Gain Control Of VA Senate. Also, InstaVision Offers A Sarah Palin Tease UPDATE: A Sarah Palin ‘Vacuum’?”

Joe
November 10th, 2011 @ 10:22 am

But who listens to me?

How many instalanches did you get over the last week or so? It could be worse.
richard mcenroe
November 10th, 2011 @ 10:23 am

It’s the 21st century. Bowties are for ironic, post-modern metroseckshuls! BRING BACK THE CRAVAT!
Anonymous
November 10th, 2011 @ 10:24 am

Sorry, but you’re getting Romney and either T-Paw or Gov. Fatass from New Jersey. Either one is a RINO crap sandwich I refuse to swallow. I swallowed my last Cocktail Party GOP crap sandwich with John McCain only because o Sarah Palin.

I’ll go in the voting booth next November and either not vote for President or write in Sarah Palin’s name. But I am done with the Cocktail Party GOP.
Anonymous
November 10th, 2011 @ 10:26 am

You could wear a bolo tie. Them babies’r way more comfortable.

I don’t listen to Smitty.

But I read his stuff at theothermccain.com
Finrod Felagund
November 10th, 2011 @ 10:49 am

Cain/Palin 2012: the liberals’ worst nightmare.
Info
November 10th, 2011 @ 10:54 am

I think what they’re really trying to say, Smitty, is that they just don’t like dinings in (dining ins?). More’s the pity for them. Good times (in the pre-DACOWITS Navy anyway)…

The story that’s being lost in the whole VA Senate thing is that the GOP got this result after the Donks got to do the 2010 census gerrymandering. BHO and his ilk are entering 2012 from a big hole.
smitty
November 10th, 2011 @ 11:09 am

You know that DACOWITS was a looong time ago. No way that a modern acronym would be so un-sexy. I mean, unattractive. Wait: maybe DACOWITS was totally ahead of its time, in its meaningless, politically correct way.
Bob Belvedere
November 10th, 2011 @ 11:13 am

Hear, Hear!
Bob Belvedere
November 10th, 2011 @ 11:16 am

With your advocacy of the superiority of the bow tie, you just prove that you are human, not the demi-god you seem to be with your habitual Right Reason.

Bow ties are only acceptable when one wears a tuxedo.
Bob Belvedere
November 10th, 2011 @ 11:17 am

Even if you disagree with my last sentence, you must agree that Adlai Stevenson and Sen. Paul Simon did the bow tie’s reputation no service.
richard mcenroe
November 10th, 2011 @ 11:21 am

Important tip for a dining-in: never roll up your sleeve as you approach the punchbowl. Um, some guy told me that. Who was a second lieutenant for a looooooong time.
Info
November 10th, 2011 @ 11:25 am

Unquestionably. With the benefit of hindsight, the two biggest mistakes the Reagan defense team made in his first term were pulling out of Lebanon after the bombing and not killing DACOWITS when they had the chance.

[My OT point was that you can’t have mess dress without a bow tie, and if someone’s saying mess dress is unmanly, then they may very well be beyond help.]
Dodd
November 10th, 2011 @ 11:40 am

On the contrary, Smitty has firmly secured his demigod status with this encomium to the virtues of the bowtie. As a longstanding member of the Axis of Bowtie, I applaud his vision and sartorial acumen.

One thing, though: Bowties are for men, not boys. There were so many 20-somethings running around in them at CPAC this year, I refused to even take mine out of my luggage. Glad though I am they’ve been restored to their rightful status in a man’s wardrobe choices, they just don’t look right on someone who looks like his mother probably helped him tie it.

And, yes, every time I wear one, I get asked if I tied it myself. It was a middle-aged poll worker this week, expressing astonishment that I knew how and not buying that it really is as easy as tying your shoes. But I’m okay with this. Provided one is not surrounded by whippersnappers riding the trend, it just makes them all the more distinctive.
Info
November 10th, 2011 @ 11:43 am

Brilliant! After the Hard Left’s heads explode, we cake walk to victory among those still around to cast a vote…
Info
November 10th, 2011 @ 11:59 am

A touch, I do confess it!

(And Shakespeare grouses, “What did I do to get dragged into this??”)
smitty
November 10th, 2011 @ 12:07 pm

Paco is a normally stout chap. One hopes he finds this post theraputic.
Anonymous
November 10th, 2011 @ 12:41 pm

Except you’ve got that backwards.

Palin’s the one with 20+ years of public sector experience and service, including 10+ years as public sector executive.

Cain can learn the difference between public and private sector from Palin.

Palin also has won 5+ elections. She’s lost only once when running her own campaign.

Cain can learn how to win elections from Palin.
big sarge
November 10th, 2011 @ 12:59 pm

So, we can expect Smitty’s portrait at the top o’ the blog to reflect this preference?
Quartermaster
November 10th, 2011 @ 1:23 pm

Smitty is Navy, so you have to understand the mutiny against the cravat and the 4-in-hand.
elaine
November 10th, 2011 @ 1:40 pm

Okay, here’s my secret Palin wish…

Yes, it’s too late to get on the ballot in the early states. But it’s not too late to get on the ballots in the Super Tuesday states. Acknowledge you won’t win the early states because you’re not on the ballot, and focus on Super Tuesday. Make enough electoral headway in the last half of primary season that the convention doesn’t have a clear nominee and has to go to a second ballot…

Or heck, what if she only got on the ballot for the very late races, just enough to make a token gesture. Just enough to guarantee Mittens can’t get the nomination in the first ballot. Then use that to broker any deal she wants. Get on a ticket with Cain. Take the nod herself… I don’t really care.

But it’s pretty danged clear at this point that the conservatives who are running in this race probably aren’t going to beat Mittens. And I can’t see myself voting for him if he’s the nominee…
Anonymous
November 10th, 2011 @ 1:54 pm

Mitt would be running against Obama. If that wasn’t sufficient for you to go all in on Stacy’s crazy cousin John in ’08, well, you may possibly, if you were rather ill-informed, have the excuse that you didn’t know how bad Obama would be. There are no excuses now.

“The worse the better” is a communist strategy, not a conservative one.
elaine
November 10th, 2011 @ 2:26 pm

Obama’s now trying to scare women voters to support him because the GOP wants to “turn back the clock on women.” He’ll be able to convince voters of that if he and the media repeat those words often enough…

The only way to fight that is to have a woman on the GOP ballot line come November.

If Mitt wins the nomination, Obama wins the election. It won’t matter how I vote, that’s what will happen. So you and your ilk trying to bully me won’t change that fact. Mitt can’t win. Period.

Sure, on paper he looks ideal. So did McCain. So did Dole. How did those candidates work out again? Oh yeah… they lost. Big time.

As bad as the economy is, Obama, with the help of the media, will be able to turn around public opinion if the GOP’s candidate is some milquetoast lying douche like Romney.

But, hey… knock yourself out. Blame people like me if Mittens doesn’t win. I’m pretty sure he won’t be losing by my single vote, or even the single votes of every conservative and libertarian out there. There’ll be plenty of independents who won’t support him, either…

I have news… candidates have to EARN the votes which are cast for them. They don’t get the election automatically handed to them because they deserve it or they want it badly enough. If they don’t earn the support of the electorate, they won’t win. There’s a reason Mitt can’t pull better than 25% in any poll of republicans… because even most republicans don’t like him or don’t trust him. If he can’t do better than 25 or 30% in the primaries, why should he get the nomination?

And if he can’t do better than 30 or 35% in the primaries, he’s not going to win the general. That isn’t my wishful thinking, that’s cold, hard facts. McCain couldn’t get a majority within his own party, either. How did that work out again?

So take your bullying that conservatives/libertarians have to take one for the team (yet again) and settle for Mitt and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
Anonymous
November 10th, 2011 @ 2:38 pm

If you were a Romney devotee saying that supporting Perry (or any candidate that has cleared the minimal bar of winning high elective office previously — which disqualifies our host’s favored candidate, but as I keep reminding him, no one without prior experience as governor, senator, or VP has even come close to being elected President since before 1900) were absolutely unacceptable, I’d be telling you exactly the same thing. Support who you want in the primaries. But once we have a nominee, do everything in your power to defeat Obama. Sitting this one out because your favored candidate didn’t get the nomination is a strategy which, if adopted en masse by any faction within the GOP, will likely get us 4 more years of Obama.
elaine
November 10th, 2011 @ 2:56 pm

I won’t be sitting this one out because my favored candidate didn’t get the nomination. I’d be sitting this one out — or more likely, voting Libertarian — because I will not vote for a lying asshat. I don’t really care if Obama wins or not if he’s running against Mitt… because Mitt won’t be much different from Obama. Does anyone even buy that he’ll do what he can to overturn Obamacare when he can’t even admit that Romneycare was a huge mistake?

That’s why he can’t get past that 25% ceiling. Because NOBODY believes he’ll do everything in his power to reverse Obamacare.

As for who the nominee will be… how about you hold off on your pronouncements until there’s actually been a vote cast somewhere…? After all, that’s why we hold elections, rather than simply rely on polls. Heck, that’s why we hold elections, rather than have the party elite sit in a back room somewhere and set the slate for us.

Or haven’t you heard…?

But again, keep your finger wagging and your guilt trips for someone who cares… I won’t be bullied into voting for the lesser of two evils when I’d still be voting for evil. Sure Obama’s worse… but I’m not convinced Mitt’s very far behind him.
elaine
November 10th, 2011 @ 3:01 pm

BTW… I voted for McCain last time, so you don’t get to act as if I sat things out in 2008. How much good did it do us again? How much difference did my little vote make? (And another aside… I voted in a state which McCain carried, so it’s not like he needed my vote to carry it, anyway…)

McCain threw away the election in October, when he sold out every rhetorical “principle” he had and supported TARP. That was the final nail in his coffin. THAT’S why people sat out the election. He LOST any support they would have given him because he sold out the principles he CLAIMED on the campaign trail to hold.

Mitt has the same sort of principles as McCain. And I ain’t wasting my vote on a RINO jerk again.
DaveO
November 10th, 2011 @ 3:26 pm

Is it more important to control the legislature, and plant the seeds of a return to judicial sanity, or to win the Executive, and have a Senate and Press castrate the Executive daily?
rosalie
November 10th, 2011 @ 3:48 pm

Your description just reminded me, does Tucker Carlson still wear one?
Adjoran
November 10th, 2011 @ 4:28 pm

No, he ditched it after someone told him it didn’t really make him look all grown-up and was just one more thing to mock.

He probably still has his Training Jockstrap, though.
Adjoran
November 10th, 2011 @ 4:30 pm

So you admit you are now a RINO who refuses to accept the verdict of the Party’s democratic process?

And are willing to condemn the nation to another four years of Obama because you don’t get your way?
Adjoran
November 10th, 2011 @ 4:32 pm

Heck, they no service to the Midwest’s reputation, or the Democratic Party’s, either.
Adjoran
November 10th, 2011 @ 4:38 pm

No difference?

Sotomayor, Kagan. Get the hint?

One to three more Supreme Court appointments for the next President, 200-300 more lifetime appointments to the federal bench, control of the EPA and DOJ, all the regulatory agencies . . .

No difference?

Sounds rather infantile to risk the nation over your personal pique. And you know as well as I do the LP will nominate some person not remotely qualified for the office anyway.

RINO.
Adjoran
November 10th, 2011 @ 4:40 pm

The thing is you cannot KNOW what difference your vote, and the votes of other frustrated conservatives (myself included) might make until they are counted, and then it is too late.

Florida 2000, but also NH, Iowa, and NM were all squeakers that year, and a very few votes could change the Electoral College results.
Adjoran
November 10th, 2011 @ 4:41 pm

With the obstinance and treachery of today’s Democratic Party, we absolutely need both branches. The Congress can force the President into doing what needs to be done if he is a reluctant, squishy Republican, but we cannot override the veto of a Democrat.
Anonymous
November 10th, 2011 @ 4:51 pm

I am a conservative, not a Republican. This is also not the GOP’s “democratic” process, as the game has been rigged by the Cocktail Party crowd, the blueblood countryclub Judge Smails Republicans. They actively participated in the deliberate destruction of a strong conservative woman, a strong conservative black man and a solid conservative governor. All to put the fix in for the Next Guy In Line.

Many GOP insiders are already talking about running the Hoboken Blimp in 2016, implying that they have accepted defeat in 2012. Of course, John McCain 2.0 all but guarantees defeat, just like John McCain 1.0 did.

If the game plays out as I suspect, I could give a crap what happens, because as a country we are prison-raped no matter who wins.
Anonymous
November 10th, 2011 @ 4:56 pm

A conservative candidate will get my vote. If Mitt Romney and either Tim Pawlenty or Chris Christie are conservative, then Helen Thomas is likely Israel’s next representative in the Miss Universe pageant.
Anonymous
November 10th, 2011 @ 4:57 pm

A conservative candidate will get my vote. If Mitt Romney and either Tim
Pawlenty or Chris Christie are conservative, then Helen Thomas is
likely Israel’s next representative in the Miss Universe pageant.
DaveO
November 10th, 2011 @ 5:01 pm

We can not override the veto of the SCOTUS, or any of the creeps who’ve bought Federal bench from the Dems, either.

Win the Senate + Win the House = Win the SCOTUS + Win Appointments to Federal Judiciary. The next Senate will have that power, since Reid already pulled the nuclear trigger on Senate Rules.

Obama can always be impeached and convicted, when necessary – but Michelle will ensure he plays nice. She loves her some fashion and toney vacations.
Anonymous
November 10th, 2011 @ 5:53 pm

I subMitt that Romney would use the squishy republicans in the house and senate along with the SDs to continue his worship of technocratic big government.
Tennwriter
November 10th, 2011 @ 6:58 pm

Well then, Adjoran and Drothgery should do all they can to make sure Mittens doesn’t win, because there are a LOT of folk like Elaine out there.

Let the earth hatch out its poisons now. We could use a little more clarity about just who stands for what.

If the R Party cannot see its way clear to doing the right thing now, when will it ever?
richard mcenroe
November 10th, 2011 @ 8:14 pm

Dwight Eisenhower?
Info
November 10th, 2011 @ 8:50 pm

So, how’s the Axelrod dental plan…
McGehee
November 10th, 2011 @ 9:31 pm

Are you the Tsar of all the Republicans, whom all must obey?

Why do you need so desperately for all of us to say at this early stage of the game that it doesn’t matter what The Establishment That Doesn’t Exist tries to cram down our throats, we’ll all be good little party-automatons and vote the way you will?

Democracy doesn’t end at the convention, you bitter little pill.
Tennwriter
November 10th, 2011 @ 9:51 pm

Never subMitt!! Never Surrender!–from the greatest Star Trek movie ever.
Bob Belvedere
November 11th, 2011 @ 12:17 am

Adj, the judges argument, when made regarding Mandate Mitt, doesn’t work:
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/marriage/romney/record/