A young Hudak supporter holds a sign in front of the auditorium in Beverly where the debate with Tierney was held.
Bill Hudak shakes hands with supporters before Thursday’s debate.
Perretti’s tobacco shop in downtown Boston.
I’m staying here until tomorrow evening, and then Pete Da Tech Guy is driving me back home to Maryland. We’re going to take a couple of days to make the trip; and make stops to cover a couple of congressional campaigns along the way. Pete needs $300 more in tip jar hits to pay for the car rental and gasoline, so get over there and hit Da Tip Jar!
UPDATE: Not sure how to read Belvedere’s cluebats, except to say that I understood the photo he sent was not for publication. Instead, let me link Pat, who is doubtless more attractive in any case.
Celebrating this, it seemed useful to separate out this cadre of doughty bloggers from the regular blogroll, into the ‘Axis of Fedorables’ section. This is the penultimate stop in the middle column of the page.
If you’re a member, and my lousy memory has omitted you, please drop a URL/cluebat in the comments.
When we were at the 9/12 rally, Da Tech Guy came up to the backstage area and said, “Stacy, you’ve got to come meet this woman I just interviewed. She’s amazing.” Smitty and I were busy trying to upload photos and video, so I couldn’t get there, but the video of Da Tech Guy’s interview with Clara Csiong — who went from China to Cuba to America — is truly as amazing as he promised:
Newsreal contributor Susannah Fleetwood attended BlogCon, where she was kind enough to pose with sidekick Smitty:
Earlier today, Smitty highlighted Mrs. Fleetwood’s latest column and, in an e-mail thanking us for the linkage, she mentioned remembering that someone had taken a photo like this. However, concerned that perhaps Frau Smith might share Mrs. Other McCain’s (unjustified) suspicion that BlogCon was a crazed saturnalia of New Media debauchery, I had previously refrained from publishing this picture.
That is a lanyard around Susannah’s neck, not Mardi Gras beads.
. . . of Astoundingly Stupid Things No Conservative Blogger in His Right Mind Would Ever Even Think About Doing:
Publish posts conflating “neocons” and “Jews” in such a way as to provoke accusations of anti-Semitism.
Respond to such accusations by publishing deranged rants against Jews.
Get into hateful public pissing matches with Ace of Spades and other cuddly ewoks who never harmed a fly, at least if the fly usually voted Republican.
Push that kind of act to such outrageous extremes that one Sunday morning I’m finally confonted with Twitter messages like this:
Now, this is merely the short list, and DoublePlusUnDead tells me the list could be extended ad infinitum. It has not generally been my habit to intrude into other people’s online flame-wars, and no one would ever nominate me as Blogospheric Arbiter of Civility, Decorum and Multicultural Sensitivity. Continue reading A Short List . . . →
This blog and DaTechGuy form something of a mutual admiration society. Besides being a thoroughgoing gentleman, he also was also kind enough to opine on Erik Erickson and Matt Kibbe, who opened the BlogCon thoughtful remarks.
Erickson had offered an anecdote about a decent neighbor who had been neighborly until discovering that Erik is conservative, at which point the neighbor could only sputter about Dick Cheney connections:
Reacting to the need for post-03 November continuity of the Tea Parties. DTG touches on the historical ‘antidote’ of LBJ, and then delves into the fact that sports teams succeed or fail in practices, and win on gameday. Then he free associates to BHO as an unaffordably expensive free agent pick for the left, and the country.
That’s right — I booked my flight this morning, and Mrs. Other McCain has already packed my suitcase, so I’ll be in Alaska for Tuesday’s absentee-ballot count.
Frankly, I was planning to go later, but got an e-mail Sunday from a source who suggested I didn’t want to miss the action Tuesday and so I did something crazy: Booked a one-way flight on short notice, because (a) I wasn’t sure I had enough money yet to buy a round-trip; (b) it isn’t clear how soon they’ll have an official decision; and (c) maybe I can drop by and see the neighborhood where, uh, Joe McGinniss lives.
IYKWIMAITYD.
OK, since I’ll be off the grid for about 12 hours, let’s round up the Alaska news, starting with this video of Joe Miller’s appearance Sunday on Face the Nation, courtesy of our friend Brian O’Connor at Red Dog Report:
“The government is going bankrupt. I don’t think anybody can deny it, sitting at $13.3 trillion in absolute debt and $130 trillion in future unfunded obligations.”
You want to see what media bias looks like? Check the lede of this story:
Joe Miller, the surprise leader in Alaska’s unresolved Republican Senate primary, said Sunday that the growing national debt requires “belt tightening” that should include cutting back on federal dollars that his state receives.
Got that? Not the “winner,” but merely the “leader.” Of course, the only reason the primary is “unresolved” is because Murkowski wouldn’t concede on Election Night and she apparently thinks the NRSC can pull some shenanigans with the absentee ballots.
In Alaska, Republicans may knock each other out on the November ballot and allow a Democrat to win the U.S. Senate seat held by the GOP for nearly three decades. Incumbent Lisa Murkowski trails GOP challenger Joe Miller by 2,000 votes and has not ruled out running as a third-party candidate if she is not the victor after state officials count absentee votes on Tuesday. A general election ballot with three candidates would split the Republican vote and make it easier for Democrats to win if they field a strong enough candidate.
Yes, there will be three candidates on the ballot in November: But if you think Lisa Murkowski’s going to be on the Libertarian ticket, you haven’t been paying close attention. It may not be up to Lisa to “rule out” a third-party campaign, OK?
OK, that should be enough Alaska news to hold you until Smitty can get back online this evening, when I’ll be on that long flight to Anchorage. This will be the longest trip yet for the increasingly legendary fedora I borrowed from Da Tech Guy, and my buddy Eric Dondero has promised to find me a sofa to sleep on, at least for the first night or two.
Booking a one-way fight when we’ve still got bills overdue has got Mrs. Other McCain worried to death about this trip, but she’s praying, and you can’t go wrong with a praying woman. Thanks to everyone who has already contributed to the Shoe Leather Fund.
Maybe I’ll be able to update from the airport in a few hours, but other than that, my next dateline will be Anchorage. So for now, I will close with the five most important words in the English language:
I’ve deleted a few of the troll Waylay’s comments, and will delete him entirely if he ever again derogates the blog, per se. This is what is not allowed, you see? You can argue any political viewpoint you wish, but you can’t come into the comments of my blog to declare that the blog sucks. If you want to declare that my blog sucks, go get your own blog and call it, “Hey, That Other Guy’s Blog Sucks,” and see how much traffic you get. But you can’t use our bandwidth to delegitimize our project.
This afternoon, I kissed my wife and hugged my kids good-bye and now I’m about to fly across the country to do what I do, and I don’t need some pathetic troll coming into the comments to say that what I do isn’t worth doing.
Celebrating this, it seemed useful to separate out this cadre of doughty bloggers from the regular blogroll, into the ‘Axis of Fedorables’ section. This is the penultimate stop in the middle column of the page.
