Radtke, Red State and Riehl
UPDATE: Radtke Campaign’s Attorney Demands Retraction and Apology
UPDATE: Radtke Denounces ‘Scurrilous Behavior’ by GOP ‘Establishment’

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UPDATE 4:50 p.m. ET: Dan Riehl clarifies the timeline and emphasizes: “It’s between the Radtke Campaign and RedState, no matter how some are trying to muddy the water to distract.”

UPDATE 1:10 p.m. ET: Dan Riehl links to a legal letter sent by Patrick McSweeney, attorney for Virginia Senate candidate Jamie Radtke:

On behalf of Jamie Radtke, I am sending this letter demanding your immediate and prominent retraction of your August 24, 2011, posting on RedState and your August 25, 2011 Morning Briefing in which you repeat statements of certain unnamed persons who attended the August 13th dinner at the RedState Gathering in Charleston, South Carolina at which Ms. Radtke spoke. One of the statements in your posting claimed that Ms. Radtke “gets drunk, and gets so embarrassing that I have to duck away….” Another statement that you repeated charged: “She was a drunk, rambling idiot that took 30 minutes to introduce a director who himself was confused.” Those statements are false. You plainly repeated the statements quoted above without regard to their accuracy.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE 1:15 p.m. ET: In case you didn’t notice, McSweeney’s letter is CC’d to Jeff Carneal and Tom Phillips, respectively the president and chairman of Red State’s parent company, Eagle Publishing.

UPDATE 1:20 p.m. ET: Will these statements by Erickson be acceptable to the Radtke campaign’s attorney?

UPDATE 2:10 p.m. ET: In an e-mail “campaign update” sent to Radtke’s supporters and conservative bloggers, her communications director Chuck Hansen writes that “the Establishment Republicans and their buddies in the Establishment Media going after Tea Party supporters who threaten their Good ‘Ol Boy power is an all-too-common phenomena.” More from Hansen’s e-mail:

George Allen’s cocktail party social set lived down to expectations this week, working through Erick Erickson to launch some very nasty attacks on Jamie. So much for Virginia gentlemen.
Of course, they had no problem accepting the Tea Party’s activism, energy and votes last year, which put them in power in the House . . .
Yesterday, on the front page of Redstate.com, Erick Erickson lashed out and wrote a blog smearing Jamie Radtke with completely false attacks by publishing libelous pejoratives in hopes of damaging her reputation.
Erickson wrote his column in response to a report on another blog that he had told Radtke, “My bosses are HUGE [George] Allen friends, not just fans. They are socially connected. So I’m having to tread carefully in this.”
Erickson, after confirming that he had made the statement, wrote a vicious blog that defamed Jamie’s character.
“Erick’s blog goes beyond the pale,” Radtke stated. “He crossed the line by publishing complete falsehoods. Now, it is his responsibility to admit he did wrong, set the record straight and apologize – and that is what I am asking Erick to do.
“This kind of scurrilous behavior and treatment has been repeatedly carried out on tea party leaders and conservative candidates who dare challenge the good ‘ole boy Washington Establishment. This attempt by the Washington Establishment to destroy the tea party and their candidates must stop. Enough is enough.
“What is most important is that we focus our attention on beating a President and his liberal Democrat friends who want to fundamentally change America. I encourage the tea party to stay determined and committed to fight back against the negative narrative on us and let’s defeat Obama and his liberal cohorts.”
Carter Wrenn, chief strategist for Radtke’s campaign, stated that a formal letter from legal counsel had been sent to Erickson demanding a retraction. “To put it as bluntly as possible,” Wrenn said, “Erick Erickson made an untrue and malicious attack on Jamie Radtke yesterday and repeated it again today. He should retract his statement, admit it is untrue and apologize for his mistake.”
Rocking the Boat in DC is hard, and doing so gets the entrenched interests very angry – that’s why it takes a special, determined leader to make it happen. Jamie is that kind of person, a new generation of courageous, conservative leader, who will stand up to Establishment Washington and their attacks and win!

You can see most of this at Radtke’s site. Meanwhile, Ben Smith and the Washington Post are popping the popcorn. Erick Erickson calls this a “distraction” — as any accusation of libel always is.

PREVIOUSLY (12:28 p.m. ET): The fallout continues from yesterday’s eruption of an online knife-fight between the campaign of Jamie Radtke, Virginia’s Tea Party candidate for Senate, and Red State’s Erick Erickson.

Erickson accused Dan Riehl of fomenting that fight, and Riehl isn’t denying it. The alleged motive involves another prominent conservative blogger, Michelle Malkin. Remember that Red State scored a publicity coup by hosting Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential announcement. Malkin wrote a column exposing flaws in Perry’s record and, when Red State’s Streiff wrote a post impugning Malkin’s “integrity and intellect,” Dan Riehl demanded that Erickson retract the slur.

(I can’t recall Malkin ever getting directly involved in a blog war. Even after Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs threatened Malkin in April 2009, she refused to respond. But you may have noticed how rapidly LGF’s decline and fall ensued.)

Erickson refused to stifle Streiff and says that Riehl responded with threats of destruction. I’ve known Dan long enough to know that he doesn’t make idle threats, so if all of this is the fulfillment of Dan’s vow of vengeance, it is not an entirely unexpected development. But there are two points worth noting:

  1. Dan didn’t start it. Streiff attacked Malkin, and Dan chivalrously defended Malkin’s reputation. If Erickson had disavowed Streiff’s attack, the blog war would have ended there.
  2. Erickson’s counter-attack on Jamie Radtke was probably a blunder. He practically called Radtke a drunk. She’s a Christian home-schooling mother of three, widely admired by Tea Party activists in Virginia. Erickson’s attack on her is likely to rally her supporters, and to hurt Red State more than it hurts Radtke.

But we have to ask if this might turn into something more serious than a blog war. As I said yesterday, one of the reactions I got from non-combatants was, “Uh-oh — he’s going after Carter Wrenn.”

That’s Radtke’s campaign manager, a veteran Republican operative with a street-fighter’s reputation. You don’t call Wrenn’s candidate a drunk and then just walk away.

David Frum sees the controversy as evidence of the influence of “hidden power brokers,” and Dave Weigel at Slate and John Hudson at the Atlantic have also taken notice of this dispute, but I’m not sure any of them understand how Erickson’s attack on Radtke has upped the ante in this game. And I’m reasonably sure we haven’t seen the last card played.

56 comments

  1. This is getting ugly, and I’m not seeing it get pretty anytime soon.

    One item of concern is the speech she gave at the RedState get-together. People I trust without question say it was a mess, and given how there doesn’t seem to be video or even audio of it anywhere I’m going on their word. Even if I heard the speech and disagreed with their opinion I’d respect their opinion. That all said, a mess of a speech does not indicate a drunken speech. People get flustered, or they’re ill-prepared and panic, or they lose all confidence in what they had prepared to say and start fishing. Unless you have unimpeachable evidence that someone has been drinking, to accuse them of being drunk is inexcusable.

  2. Don’t know about Radtke but I have read Dan and Michelle and Erick.

    I quit reading Redstate because they talked about banning anyone who talked about Obama’s birth certificate. I understand that the blog owner’s rules apply on their blog but they should ban people only for type of speech (threats, obscenities, bullying etc.) and NOT for the topics they want to discuss.

    Michelle has had a tough year so NO one should be attacking her  and her conservative bonafides are better than Erick’s. If she has negative things to say about someone, I’ll listen closely. Same with Dan.

    Erick: in my opinion you’re a tool. Remember the first rule of holes.

  4. It would seem that Radtke went on too long, giving a rambling campaing-style speech when she was supposed to be giving a simple intro for Stephen Bannon. She was perhaps nervous and got flustered, and started trying to find an applause line with an audience that wasn’t in an applauding mood.

    This kind of stuff happens — I likewise have a tendency toward logorrhea when I’m nervous — and if it happened to Radtke, that’s unfortunate, but not a campaign-killer.

    I have sometimes said that Herman Cain ought to work toward having a 5- or 10-minute version of his campaign speech. People nowadays aren’t used to sitting still for a 30- or 45-minute speech, and you’d gain more in a meet-the-candidate setting by giving a short pep-talk, then answering questions for a fews minute before getting to the what people really enjoy: Socializing one-on-one with the candidate. When I saw Herman in Iowa, he seemed to feel the need to give his entire stump speech at every event, and that struck me as tactically counter-productive in small-group settings.

    But nobody’s paying me to advise political candidates, so I just point these things out from time to time and hope somebody notices. (Please: Steal my advice!)

  7. RSM what you told Mr. Cain is good advice for all candidates, especially TEA Party novices:

    1. Bulletize your speech, then reduce each bullet to what can be said in 20 seconds. Keep rehearsing the sound bite until it’s as natural as a Schumerian Smear.

    2. On Order quote the longer bullet.

    3. Be Prepared To not go beyond what is written and posted to the campaign website. Ever.

  10. why do things like this remind me of the time Erickson tried to convince people that Joe Scarborough was the most important conservative in the media?  

  12. Expect more of this stuff. 

    The ruling class types think the old rules still apply.  They failed to note the ground shifting under their feet.  Radtke was supposed to wilt under the fast and loose smear, but faced with calls for some real substantiation (ie. the TAPE) from her supporters (and others, who stand in opposition to the business-as-usual crowd) they instead try misdirection and denial.

    Erickson is, and always has been, a tool. This time he has simply revealed himself as a fickle and dishonest tool.

  13. Unless he has more evidence (like someone at the next table) Erickson should publish a correction to the effect that Radtke may not have been drunk.  She might just be a blithering idiot.  Wouldn’t be the first time the “Tea Party” candidate turned out to be a mess.  At least the fifth, after O’Donnell, Buck, Angle, and Miller. 

    Of course, none of them were nominated by the Tea Party itself, any more than the loser Democrats who file as “Tea Party” candidates around the country as spoilers.  They were endorsed by small, privately-controlled groups who appropriate the Tea Party name and language for their own purposes.  But these behind-the-scenes people have a record of Epic Failure.

    Erickson’s real blunder was in sending the email.  It was a weaselly thing to do, implying he would be an active supporter if only his bosses weren’t close to Allen.  If you have to blame the publisher, you should just quit.  Nothing is always a wise thing to say.

    Naturally, this puts the world on notice that any private email sent to the Radtke campaign may end up on some low-rent blog if it suits her purposes.  Maybe that’s not so significant – who would email the footnote campaign anyway?

    ~~~~~

    Malkin has certainly bought into the anti-vaccine insanity that endangers not only the children involved, but also society at large.  The very concept that because most people do get their kids vaccinated it is acceptable to skip your own due to reduced risk is simply antisocial behavior.

    I understand that is a part of her criticism of Perry, and that some of the Paulian nuts consider it a “freedom” issue, when it is actually the “freedom to freeload” they desire.  How this involves Radtke and Allen is a deeper question, and deep in the doo-doo we find a Riehl familiar face.

  15. If I were Stacy, I would add one more update. One about how all the best objective coverage of this whole thing can be found right here at The Other McCain and that  people should hit his freaking tip jar.
    He just saved us a whole lot of clicking around by putting it all up from both sides right here for our information and enjoyment.
    Thanks, Stacy, this is one of the reasons why you’re the first blogger I see in the morning when I am having my coffee & the last one I check out before bed, with tons of visits in between. There is always something interesting going on here, and you’ve got one of the best comment sections around the blogosphere too. I can easily lose hours here just haunting the threads.
    Having said all that, I hope Ms. Radke cleans the clocks of the smarmy cocktail party elitist schmucks! They really do seem like asses.

  18. I have heard Jaime speak on several occassions.  Public speaking is not her best asset.  That is for sure.  She doesn’t have a great deal of presence.  That can be worked on and improved over time.  I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.  I have been around her on at least two or three occassions where alcohol was present and don’t remember seeing her drinking.  People with drinking problems normally do partake if it is available. 

    But, on the down side she really pissed me off her endorsement of one of the VA state senate races.  http://912member.blogspot.com/2011/08/is-senate-candidate-jaime-radtke-just.html
    Jeff taking set aside government contracts based on him being a disadvatanged minority when he looks and speaks like a middle aged white guy is not exactly a conservative principle as far as I am concerned. 
    I find it rather rich that she is now claiming foul when what happened to Frederick’s opponent is now happening to her. 

  19. It IS a distraction and Radtke is playing dirty politics.  I don’t CARE how illustrious her campaign manager is said to be,  he’s playing dirty pool.

  20. Dan Riehl looks like a ridiculous Drama Queen in this.  He should have had the decency and common sense to not inject himself into an issue of which he isn’t, realistically, a part of.

  21. “It would seem that Radtke went on too long, giving a rambling campaign-style speech…”
     
    On the one hand, this hasn’t hurt Oblabber.  On the other hand, it helped scuttle Christine O’Donnell’s candidacy.  The more one rambles, off message, the more likely one’s to err.
     
    BTW – I really dislike, no detest, this intra-squad mudslinging.  Keep it to the issues.  It never ceases to amaze me, how down and dirty the “GOP” can be.  Amongst themselves, but never when it counts – against the Dims.

  24. As the truth gets murdered when threats get thrown around, people should take the time and read up themselves on what’s going on.  Leon Wolf just wrote a follow up article on this issue since he was right there in the middle of it all. 

    http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2011/08/25/with-apologies-yet-more-on-the-radtke-speech/

    Here’s my simple take on the situation.  Ms Radtke didn’t do well and tried to make it right and end up making it worse.  People there in the audience gave their honest opinion of her speaking.   Erick reported it which ticked off Ms Radtke because it made her look bad publicly.  She is lucky that there wasn’t a video or audio, because it would have removed all doubt about people’s opinion.

    Ms Radtke could have said she was nervous and didn’t have enough time to put together a speech that would fit for the 20 minutes she was given.  She should have owned up and gone on.  She would have had much more respect from people and the issue would have been forgotten for now.

    But she didn’t.  She ended up going the other way with threats from a campaign lawyer to cover up the situation.  That is the worse mistake a candidate can do.  Once you lose people’s respect, you’ve lost the race.

  25. So, now it’s clear which bloggers have self-selected themselves as the editors for the social page (Erickson, Riehl, RSM).  In the race that matters – Radtke v. Allen – I still lean Allen because the last time I checked he was conservative enough for the Washington Post to coordinate a campaign killing smear around a nonsense word.  The ambitious Ms. Radtke has chosen an odd “establishment” target, in my view.

    d(^_^)bhttp://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”

  26. I have to say, this seems like a candidate frustrated that she made a fool of herself on a major stage taking it out on their host. It happens, usually right before a campaign utterly self-destructs.

    EE shouldn’t have sent the e-mail. But he seems to have a pattern of being defensive in these sorts of things.

    But this is NOTHING like what Ben Smith tried to intimate, where they’re endorsing and retracting based on money. He went off half-cocked, as usual, on that one.

    As far as strieff goes, he’s a regular writer on RS who got his blog promoted for countering what seemed to be a rather over-the-top assertion by Malkin. I don’t know why EE, or anyone @ RS, would be obligated to ‘apologize’ for what another blogger said. Having read streiff’s post, I would say it was perhaps heavy on invective, but nothing unsurprising in the blogging world, except it was aimed at a luminary. That said, Malkin’s article on Perry did seem to go ‘much’ further than was necessary to simply say, “He made a bad decision.”–a fact the Gov has conceded HIMSELF since.

  27. Mr. Riehl rarely looks ridiculous.  What he does look like is a ‘bad man’ in the parlance of the Old West as in ‘a bad man to tangle with.’

    Mr. Erickson should start to consider if he feels lucky.

  28. I’m still on the sidelines here, not really knowing what’s going on, and I find myself mostly agreeing with you….

    But Mr. Erickson did not say ‘she gave a rotten speech and sounded like a dork.’ which if he had, I would agree with you.  No, he said ‘she was drunk.’

    At that point, different rules apply.

    I’m not sure if you don’t get this, or if you’re simply ignoring this. 

  31. If this was really about “the Radtke campaign and RedState,” as Riehl contends he would never have stuck his coprophagic-self into the discussion in the first place. This is and always was about Dan Riehl and his near pathologic craving for acceptance by others. For time immemorial, it seems, Riehl was craving the acceptance of the Palin “campaign” (such as it isn’t) that he could have been named the official proctologist of the Palin “campaign.” Now that it seems Perry is the guy to knock off the top spot, he’ll do all he can to make himself seem important and relevant to that faction.
     One doesn’t need to look very far to see why the mentality that always has one backing the tea-party “candidate” is not necessarily always the best option available. See McDonnell versus Castle for all you need to know. McDonnell was a train-wreck of a candidate, and it would seem to others that Radtke also suffers from the same faults. 

    It’s really not about Perry, or Radtke, or others as much as it is for Christian evangelicals being opposed to having a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, being the standard bearer for their party. It’s disgusting and bigoted behavior that I’m afraid will lead us not into temptation but into abject failure in our bidding to rid ourselves of the national nightmare currently residing at 1600 Pennsylvania for what I’m afraid will be another five and a half years. 

  33. Wow. You just had to suggest it was bigotry that makes people dislike Romney.

    Not the fact he’s flip-flopped every major position to suit his personal interests. Not the fact he’s unreliable and untrustworthy.

    Not the fact he’s simply put, a bad candidate and unworthy of the highest office in the country. You know, if Romney is the guy Obummer WANTS to have as the front runner, that should probably tell you he isn’t the BEST guy to have as frontrunner.

    I’ll vote 3rd party before Romney not because he’s Mormon. But because he’s just another Statist. And if the GOP doesn’t get, after the Tea Party and the 2010 elections, that we do not WANT or NEED to be Dim-lite, then it isn’t my place to subsidize their stupidity with a vote.

    The Mormon-bigotry card from the Romney campaign is the Rove equivalent of the Race Card. And it’s just as maxed out.

  34. Lest we forget –> Erickson did this to Palin  http://tinyurl.com/42e4m6f   (Not that Palin can’t defend her own and this actually matters)

     I’m just sayin’…I’m seeing a pattern that I’m not comfortable with…sigh.  And I’m sick of  all the infighting between Conservatives.  Have we turned into Liberals?  Sheesh   FWIW It’s a pity too because these incidents are turning new people away from getting involved.

  35. Nice guys finish last in politics just as in baseball. Once you let people talk trash about you and lie about you, you might as well just go out and dig your own grave; someone will be along to push you in soon enough.

  38. You forgot one pertinent tip: don’t expect conservative media to not be dickheads just because they’re conservative. Remember that (with a few rare exceptions, such as yourself) they are media *first,* conservative second.

  39. After looking through all of his and anyone else’s post at RS for this subject, Erickson, himself, did not say she was drunk.  He quoted others who were there, who asked if she was drunk.  As well as many other quotes by others.  He mentioned that this was other people saying this because he wasn’t there to witness it. 

    Even on the radio that I listened to, he made the same statement, saying he wasn’t there and was just repeating what others said and stated.

    For you to claim that Erick said it or claimed it directly is disingenuous.  Leon Wolf also backs the account because Leon was there in person.  I could see knocking Erick if he was just saying this to put down Ms. Radtke, but in Erick’s radio show, you could tell it was paining him to even talk about this. 

    Ms. Radtke though is making a weird fight with someone who initially gave his support to.   She needs to drop this before she shoots herself in the other foot and doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

  41. It was EE that brought Riehls name into it because of riehl’s defense of Malkin. I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, support your candidate, but don’t slime the other candidates to the point where thier supporters get turned off by your actions. I live in Colorado and Ken Buck lost alot of support because outside trashing done to his primary opponent.

  43. Problem is, getting the RedState folks to say ‘Ok, she wasn’t drunk, she was just such a poor public speaker that the majority opinion of the room thought she was drunk’ doesn’t help her.  Lots of drunks have been elected to the Senate (see: Kennedy, Ted) but very few horrible public speakers.

  44. There would be a very simple, easy way to settle this nonsense, if anybody is really interested in settling it, that is. Just ask the director of The Undefeated what really happened. That’s who she introduced in her allegedly drunken, rambling speech, so he should know. Why would he lie?

  45. Mike,

    I read the RSM post above where RSM says that she was practically a drunk.  I read the RS post where Mr. Erickson has a bunch of unnamed folk make charges.

    True, he did not say she was drunk.  I overstated.

    Instead, he just quoted a bunch of anonymous people.

    Hmmm, there’s a phone call, why, its someone telling me that Mike Cessac is a bank robberer.  I think I should buy a full-page add based on what this anonymous person (who might be Mike’s worse enemy and could be a convicted perjurer) has told me.  that way I can warn everyone of what someone told me about Mike’s bankrobbing mayhem….

    Um, no.

    If I did that, you’d be justifiably furious at me.  And other people would have cause to wonder about my motives.  Especially because any reasonable person would know the story is very unlikely to be true.

    Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

    Now, we have someone named Aaron Gardner at the RS post who says he was there, and she was drunk.  We have another person at the RS post who claims even closer contact, and sounds more intelligent who says she had no signs  of being drunk.

    I am currently dissapointed in Mr. Erickson’s choice.  My opinion now has more data to back it up.

    I suspect that one of the RS posters gave teh game away when he said the utter nonsense that we need to get away from ‘Establishment vs. grassroots’ if I’m remembering it correctly.

    My suspicion is that yet again the Establishment put out a hit on a Conservative.  My response to that idea is unprintable.

    A question or two, Mr. Cussac: 1. Did you support John McCain for President before he sealed the R nomination?  2. Do you support Romney for the  R nomination now?

  46. You know, if Romney is the guy Obummer WANTS to have as the front runner, that should probably tell you he isn’t the BEST guy to have as frontrunner. You need to get your Mormon’s straight, Shawn. From what I hear, Obama wanted that Huntsman fella to run against him, though the idea that the role may be filled with a Rick Perry (or worse) probably has him and Michelle already planning their inaugural dinner seating arrangement. 

    Give it a rest about the “Mormon bigotry card” being played. Just the other night I was at a restaurant in Ocala, FL, with a friend. The elderly couple across from us started discussing politics, and while I normally don’t eavesdrop on geriatric conversations, I thought it might be interesting to pay attention to what they were saying. One said that “liked that guy from Texas, whatever his name was,” though I doubt either one of them could name a single idea or proposal Perry had made at that point. The guy sitting at the table said something about the “guy from Massachusetts,” to which his woman friend shot back, “he’s a Mormon, and that’s a cult, with that Joseph Smith and his wives…” That abruptly ended their conversation about politics, and my interest in their conversation. When it came to paying for my meal though I asked the waitress if I might also pay for the table across from me, as a surprise to them. She brought me their check and all I wrote on their copy of the check, other than “paid” was “www.mormon.org ignorance is not bliss for anyone involved.” Though I know it now early impossible to make a long story short, this is the kind of battle that Romney is up against in the south, and following New Hampshire it’s the south that will make or break Romney’s campaign. 

  47. Correction….

    RSM said that Erickson practically called Radtke a drunk.

    Not that RSM said Radtke was a drunk.

    I will, btw, in general, give a great deal of weight to RSM on interpretations of what newsfolk are saying.  I agree with him here. Erickson is doing an ‘almost’.

  48. We see a partial retreat from the ‘drunk’ to ‘everyone knew she was an idiot’ line of defense.  The problem with the first have been amply stated.  The problem with the second is again….where’s the proof?

    The way some folk have put both these together is a bit suspicious to me.

    An honest plain-spoken man says. “My opinion is true because of this.”

    A lawyer says “This is true because of this, but disagreeing with me is a sign of mental deficiency, and I also have the backup opinion that serves the same purpose as my first opinion….”

    Its the diff between an Honest Man and a Professional Arguer.  The Honest Man can be often wrong, but even when Leftard the Weird Duck is screeching at you, you think he’s believing what he’s saying even if it is completely nutty.  Liars, I mean Lawyers, are paid to present arguements, and some of the anti-Radtke seems a trifle slick.

    It might be true that Radtke is messed up, but the nature of those one argues with is one important factor in a debate.  You might realize those you debate have a secret agenda driving the debate.

    Just a thought for Conservatives out there.  Be wary.

  50. Huntsman is a media plant, not a candidate. Romney is a dream for Obama, because his worst issue is something equally radioactive to Romney. No voter is going to give Mitt a pass on Romneycare, given its status as a model for Obamacare. None. *That* is what makes Romney Obama’s dream.

    And an elderly couple grousing about who they like and don’t. That’s your defense for slurring every evangelical Christian as ‘anti-Mormon?’ Or is this the usual ‘bigotry is only accepted when evangelicals are the target’ line the Lamestream uses?

    Romney will lose because there’s not a single policy he can take a stand on and say, “This is what I am.” He’s not small government, in an election where reducing the size of government matters. He’s not ‘really’ pro-Free Market, given Romneycare destroyed it and he’s a protectionist. And his record on social conservativism is almost enough to make Obama proud.

    So what does Romney have, other than money and Karl Rove? Not a thing. And I personally thank Rove for turning the Conservative Revolution into a geographic ratings game that helped ruin the GOP in a half-dozen states.

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