"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler
So said Herman Cain to a media scrum Monday in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel got to go along for a ride on the campaign bus.
Back in August, Ellen Carmichael promised me a ride on the campaign bus in Iowa, but it never happened because they changed the schedule at the last minute and didn’t bother to tell me until it was too late.
That’s the kind of stuff that happens to bloggers once Tabitha Hale decides you aren’t good enough for BlogCon.
by Smitty
Rep. Allen West summarizes “Bag” Holder’s ignoble career, and politely suggests that even #OccupyResoluteDesk may be complicit in Fast & Furious.
Wow. To be a fly on the wall when Barack saw that one. . .
via Nice Deb, who has a whole lot more.
Update: Daily Pundit is less impressed. In response to Quick’s objections, my gut is to trust West. The details of the maneuvers may not all be public, not that I have any insight into GOP strategy, if any exists.
Three of Rick Santorum’s children outside the Ames Straw Poll, Aug. 13, 2011
“Rick Santorum is seemingly so impossibly behind in the polls that it’s difficult to think he’s running for president for his own ego or because he’s particularly power hungry. In fact, what praise Santorum receives is always praise of the same ilk: He fills his niche well, speaking eloquently and evenly about social and foreign policy issues that desperately need to be addressed but threaten to be overlooked in this economy-dominated cycle. Why doesn’t that score him more points with voters supposedly sick of politicians who care more about themselves than they do about the issues?”
— Tina Korbe, Hot Air
One of my beefs about the “Second look at Gingrich” trip is that it is being promoted by people who never gave Rick Santorum a first look. If you’re scouting around for your next favorite Not Romney candidate, certainly Santorum is more plausible than Newt. (Today’s headline: “Gingrich Said to Be Paid at Least $1.6 Million by Freddie Mac.”)
Santorum’s brand of conservatism may not be your particular cup of tea, but there is no denying that he is a man of firm principle, untainted by even the slightest hint of corruption or scandal. Neither can it be denied that Santorum has campaigned tirelessly despite all discouragement. He has held events in all 99 counties in Iowa and you might think that some of Herman Cain’s critics — who have slagged him for his alleged neglect of Iowa — would give Santorum credit for his relentless campaigning in the Hawkeye State.
But no: The bandwagon-jumpers, who have flitted around from one Republican candidate to another, always want to jump onto a bandwagon they think can win, and so the media’s pre-emptive judgment that Santorum is not a contender becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s a matter of perception and reality, and that Saturday in August when I caught up with Santorum at a barn party in Roland, Iowa, stands out in my memory for the contrast between the perception of Santorum’s campaign and the reality.
When a candidate is bumping along in single digits in the polls, there is the tendency to think he’s got no support at all. Yet there was Santorum in a barn in the middle of a cornfield, surrounded by dozens of ordinary Iowans who were enthusiastically devoted to his candidacy, and telling them confidently that he was going to shock the world by winning the Iowa caucuses and going on from their to win the Republican nomination and then defeating Obama.
It was a classic Iowa moment and, despite everything, I cannot even now — with just 48 days remaining until the Jan. 3 caucuses — rule out the possibility that Santorum’s “Little Engine That Could” campaign might indeed succeed. Stranger things have happened in this weird year, and once the bandwagon-jumpers realize that the Newt Bubble is foredoomed to failure (see Maetenloch’s post at the generally pro-Newt AOSHQ for a few hints) I wonder if Santorum might finally get that first look he has been so long denied.
Iowa blogger Shane Vander Hart has endorsed Santorum, and his list of reasons for supporting Santorum begins with this:
He is a man of integrity. What you see is what you get. There hasn’t been any doublespeak. He doesn’t have any skeletons in his closet. He doesn’t flip flop. He’s a strong family man. If you spend any time around him it is quite evident that he loves his wife Karen and their seven children. He has strong character, and is faithful both to his family and God.
It is fashionable among pundits nowadays to derogate social conservatism as a spent force in GOP politics, but if the Christian Right has any remaining clout, surely it has clout in Iowa, and Santorum’s family-friendly campaign — his wife and kids traveling with him to every event — has a built-in appeal.
While I’m not sure that Shane Van Hart’s influence will set off a herd stampede toward Santorum, I am reminded of something that Joe Albrecht, spokesman for Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, said to me in August: “Iowans . . . recognize the value of hard work.” They expect candidates to work for their votes, and no candidate has worked Iowa as hard as Santorum has.
Nothing else but hard work can explain how Santorum over-performed in the Ames Straw Poll, where he finished a strong fourth and, as he pointed out in our post-event interview, was massively outspent by all three candidates who placed ahead of him.
Santorum’s strong finish at Ames should have given his campaign a boost, but was overshadowed by (a) Rick Perry’s Phantom Menace, and (b) Tim Pawlenty quitting the next day. Looking back now, three months later, it is supremely ironic to see Gingrich (who got just 385 votes at Ames) in the four-way Iowa front-runner scrum, with Perry fifth (7%) while Santorum is seventh (3%) and continues to be low-rated as a non-contender by all the pundits.
There’s something definitely wrong with that picture and it seems to me that anyone who thinks Santorum will be a non-factor in Iowa is likely to be very surprised come Jan. 3.
UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein says, “Yet again, we’ve been played” — although I hope he doesn’t include me in that “we,” as I’ve been fighting the Conventional Wisdom for the past year. And quite frankly, I think it’s time to start casting a skeptical eye at Fox News coverage of the campaign, because they’ve been pushing their own sort of Conventional Wisdom that’s not quite the same as the MSM’s version, but still quite influential.
Linked by Nice Deb and the Spartanburg Tea Party blog, as well as by Da Tech Guy who says I gave Lisa Graas “the best birthday present ever.” Lisa’s response to that on Twitter caused me to accuse her of sexual harassment.
Not like that’s a bad thing, you understand . . .
UPDATE II: Massive Memeorandum thread on Gingrich’s Freddie Mac deal, and Iowa reporter Kay Henderson provides audio and a transcript of Newt’s exchange with reporters this morning:
Bloomberg’s John McCormick: “Bipartisan commissions have sort of found that ‘influentials’ were sometimes put on Fannie & Freddie just to have them friendly. Is this is a case of that?
Gingrich: “I have no idea…I was approached to give strategic advice. I was glad to offer strategic advice and we did it for a number of companies and Gingrich Group was very successful.”
McCormick: Do you think you were sort of being bought to just be there and be a friendly voice?”
Gingrich: “No, I don’t think that anymore than your institution is being bought by the people who advertise in it.”The New York Time’s Trip Gabriel: “Do you recall any of the strategic advice you did give?…Expanding housing for low-income Hispanic communities, for example?”
Gingrich: “Well, first of all, if you can do it in a way that is financially sound, every American should be interested in expanding housing opportunities for people whether they’re African American, or Latino or of any background so the idea that you’re thinking about how can we help people learn how to budget, how can we help people learn how to save, how could you help them learn how to maintain a house on a low income would strike me, for more people, would be good things to do, not bad things to do and I’m happy to say I made public speeches to the National Association of Home Builders. I’m in favor of the largest possible home ownership. This is all public knowledge. I’m in favor of doing the right kind of things and you can go talk to Rick Lazio about the support I gave him as speaker on housing reform which he pushed through despite opposition of some of the people like Barney Frank and others, so I think the record there is one of I’m pretty consistent and frankly, I tend to give the same strategic advice in private I give in public.”….AP’s Tom Beaumont: “Does this remind you that your background comes from being a Washington insider?”
Gingrich: “It reminds people that I know a great deal about Washington and if you want to change Washington, we just tried four years of amateur ignorance and it didn’t work very well, so having somebody who knows Washington might be a really good thing.”
Yeah. Good luck with that argument.
by Smitty
This is either a result of (a) incomplete analysis, or (b) a cheap populist appeal:
“Any congressman or senator that uses their insider knowledge to profit in the stock market ought to be sent to jail—period,” said Mr. Perry, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination.
This sounds swell, but is going to hit a major brain freeze right around Article 1, Section 5:
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.
What I think would be effective, if I may utter the dread words “Constitutional Amendment” is along the lines of:
Every Congress, in the 18th month thereof, shall require a confidence vote by at least two thirds of the legislatures of the States. Failure to meet this confidence threshold shall result in no member of that Congress being allowed to retain their seat after that seat is next up for election.
I call this the “Kill Switch” Amendment. It’s not an individual term limit, but rather a global one. Chemotherapy, sadly, wipes out a few good cells with the bad. But don’t let your love of good tissue trick you into tolerating cancer. The Paul Ryans and Allen Wests are going to get themselves re-elected. If the Congress fails its confidence vote, they can either run for a Senate seat, state office, or just take a two-year sabbatical.
Example reasons for amputating a Congress en masse could include, but are not limited to:
I’m not going to say I had Princess Pelosi in mind when I wrote that list.
The argument that “government is too complex; we need to retain experience” is mostly specious. When someone says it’s too complex, the follow-up question is why we haver permitted the cancer of complexity to overtake matters. For example, in doing the homework for the simple act of retaining a nanny for The World’s Youngest Blogger, I have two words for the IRS, the second of which is “you”. The only reason that Doing The Right Thing with respect to taxation resembles a course in Differential Equations is that we have allowed to many “experts” to obfuscate matters.
The notion of a Kill Switch has the virtue of brutal simplicity. Possibly there would be a way to rig the idea; but would you vote for somebody willing to change their name legally just to get into office?
I predict that, with enough fresh blood and reduced incumbency, the Congress could move closer to serving the people, and resemble less an obnoxious aristocracy. You see that in the relatively less corrupt military; when the people are shifted around often enough, the focus moves more to accomplishing the mission. Sure, people end up making themselves look good, but that remains more a by-product of getting things done. Arguably, there is some loss to the size of mission scope brought on by lack of experience. However, I’m contending here that less scope is better. Or did you think ObamaCare was a keen idea?
Now, the idea of judicial term limits may be worth exploring. And one can admire the way Rick is willing to stir the pot, as with telling the truth about Socialist Security. Meanwhile, Governor Perry, can you please quit with the emotionally nifty appeals that are not going to mean much in the real world?
Update: linked at Dustbury.
by Smitty
What a nauseating bucket of drool at The Hill:
| Pecquet | Smitty |
|---|---|
| Democrats on Capitol Hill are worried that the Supreme Court will rule against President Obama’s healthcare reform law. | The SCOTUS will rule in favor of the Constitution and liberty. Liberty, Mike Foxtrot: do you speak it? |
| Over the last couple weeks, congressional Democrats have told The Hill that the law faces danger in the hands of the Supreme Court, which The New York Times editorial page recently labeled the most conservative high court since the 1950s. | No the SCOTUS is supposed to protect the Constitution. Also, you seem to have conflated Appeal to Authority with Appeal to Clowns. You see, nobody that gives the likes of Krugman or Brooks the space to peddle idiocy has any credibility. |
| While the lawmakers are not second-guessing the administration’s legal strategy, some are clearly bracing for defeat. | Why should the administration, which peddles policies of failure, of which ObamaCare is just a particularly egregious example, expect to do anything but fail here? Does the administration actually want to succeed, and have the ObamaCare albatross perch upon #OccupyResoluteDesk? BHO, admittedly, whitewashes everything, but I’m not sure this was the whitewash which he sought. |
| “Of course I’m concerned,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). The justices “decide for insurance companies, they decide for oil companies, they decide for the wealthy too often.” | What is that supposed to mean? If the Justices are deciding cases based upon anything other than law, in the service of justice, then, by all means: let the Justices be impeached. Or did you read such drivel in the New York Times, Brown? Sure, Kelo, but does anybody doubt that the main beneficiaries of ObamaCare are the crony capitalists friends of the Administration? |
The Daily Pundit piles on as well.
A less idiotic take over at the WSJ, emphasis mine:
The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether ObamaCare is constitutional, granting certiorari in a case brought by 26 states shortly after that law was enacted in March of last year. In so doing, it will be ruling upon the very nature of our federal union.
One might be tempted to think that our leadership would agree. Yes, ObamaCare is a Big Biden Deal. So why did the Democrat-controlled Congress trie to back-door the legislation, and not offer an Article V convention? I sort of know the answer, but that is a rhetorical club with which these Progressive hacks should be flogged on a more or less endless basis.
Still more at Hot Air, which notes the following about Elena Kagan, whom I’ll dub #OccupySCOTUS:
Kagan has been exceedingly conscientious about recusals, perhaps more so than necessary. It’s safe to say that such scrupulous adherence to the judicial canon will work in her favor when she argues — or more likely her defenders, as Kagan is unlikely to directly address these calls — that she has no need to recuse herself in this case.
Ah, yes: play scrupulously by the rules, so that you have something at which to point when it’s time to cheat. The Lefty evil can at least be elegant upon occasion.
When the history of this administration is written, ObamaCare shall have proven the Battle of the Bulge. 2012 will be anything but boring.
via Instapundit
During my visit to Iowa in August, I met and interviewed former Iowa Farm Bureau chief Dean Kleckner, who is featured in Herman Cain’s Iowa ad that began airing last week:
Unlike Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who have been running TV ads on local stations in Iowa, Cain’s 60-second ad began airing on cable — FOX News Channel to be exact.
“The new television ad is a result of the strong fundraising that has occurred over the last ten days,” Steve Grubbs, Cain’s Iowa chairman, told NBC News. “Our supporters are rallying to Herman Cain’s defense and that means we will be able to take our message directly to voters.”
The ad has three Iowa farmers and one former farmer discussing how EPA regulations are hurting their business amidst scenes of farmland and other Iowa landmarks.
“Over-regulation is killing the American farmer. I think Herman Cain is the answer,” retired farmer Dean Kleckner says in the ad.
Kleckner served 10 years as president of the Iowa Farm Bureau, 14 years as president of the American Farm Bureau, and on the U.S. Trade Advisory Committee under three presidents.
“Herman Cain reminds me of Ronald Reagan and I knew Ronald Reagan. It is time to put the United back into the United States of America,” Kleckner continues in the ad.
One of my beefs about the Cain campaign — and I’ve been complaining about this to friends for weeks — is that they have not yet produced a single 30-second TV ad. Lots of online videos, but no 30-second TV spots. Which was OK, when they didn’t have enough money to buy TV time, but we’re now just seven weeks away from the Iowa caucuses, they’ve collected millions of dollars in contributions since September, and isn’t it time they produce a standard 30-second ad?
UPDATE: By the way, the new-and-improved HermanCain.com site isn’t improved enough. For example, when I saw Cain in South Carolina, he told me he would be in Iowa today, but good luck trying to find today’s itinerary on the site. Instead, I have to get the news from Politico:
DUBUQUE, Iowa — Herman Cain is back in Iowa Tuesday for to kick off a week of early-state campaigning that will take him to New Hampshire and Florida. . . .
Cain’s in first place, with 20 percent, though Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are all just points behind according to the Bloomberg News numbers out Monday. A second survey, taken by Kellyanne Conway’s polling company, also shows Cain in first place in Iowa, with a one point lead over Gingrich.
Steve Grubbs, Cain’s Iowa chairman and a veteran of the Steve Forbes and Bob Dole campaigns, said Tuesday that Cain would speak with reporters after each of the two Iowa events . . .
I don’t want to link Politico for Herman Cain news, OK? But when I can’t get Herman Cain news in a timely manner from HermanCain.com, I don’t have any other choice. The last time I talked to J.D. Gordon, he told me he now has a communications team of four people. What the hell are those people doing, if they’re not writing press releases and posting them on the Web site?
Is there no one in the Cain organization who understands the importance of timeliness in the news business? And don’t they understand that campaign activity is, in fact, news? The campaign’s Web site therefore could and should be a conduit for breaking news, because who knows better what the campaign is doing than the campaign’s own staff? Instead the site is posting stuff way out of date, so that by the time it’s on HermanCain.com, it’s obsolete.
Three polls this week — from Bloomberg, the Polling Company and Insider Advantage — show Cain leading Iowa. As of 11 a.m. today, none of that good news for Cain was reported anywhere on HermanCain.com. Talk all you want about running a “non-traditional campaign,” but tolerating incompetence isn’t “non-traditional,” it’s just stupid. I can ignore gaffes, but I can’t ignore basic communications failure like this.
A candidate’s Web site should be the first and best source for news about campaign activity. Your supporters (to say nothing of neutral objective journalists like me) shouldn’t have to go Googling around to try to figure out where the candidate will be campaigning from day to day.
Professor William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection has video of Gloria Allred’s press conference today with the ex-boyfriend of Cain accuser Sharon Bialek.
This whole story strikes me as profoundly weird: At the Bialek press conference last week, Allred waved a couple of affidavits from people to whom Bialek previously told her story — as if this proved something. But if all Bialek has is one side of a “he-said/she-said,” what does it matter that her ex-boyfriend attests to her side of the story?
So then today, Allred brought out the ex-boyfriend, Dr. Victor Zuckerman, for his own press conference, at which he read his statement and refused to take questions. And then Professor Jacobson did a quick search and discovered some details of Dr. Zuckerman’s 2010 bankruptcy:
In May 2010 (after the bench trial, but before the judgment was entered) Stratford Pediatric sold its assets to Central DuPage Hospital for $333,000.00 in cash. This money was mostly transferred to Zuckerman’s personal accounts. He soon went on a gambling and day trading spree and lost all of the money. In July 2010, Zuckerman moved to Louisiana. On September 15, 2010, Zuckerman filed a chapter 11 petition in the Western District of Louisiana. His creditors include, among others, Stratford Center (with claims of $675,000.00), his ex-wife (with claims of $89,000.00), and the IRS (with claims of $50,000.00).
So this guy blew more than $300,000 in a gambling spree, declared bankruptcy owing more than $800,000, while Bialek herself has a shaky financial history (never mind the cryptic comments of Bill Kurtis) and the other named accuser, Karen Kraushaar, seems to be a habitual complainant. Everybody keeps saying, “Four accusers! Where there’s smoke, there must be fire!” but when examined critically, the accusers whose names we know don’t seem especially upstanding people. What would we learn about the other two anonymous accusers if they weren’t anonymous?
Anyway, back to Gloria Allred:
Allred says it’s time for Cain to admit he does know Bialek, and “fully disclose” the specifics of the allegations against him. Cain’s strategy of “blanket denials simply won’t work,” she says.
This is absurd: Herman Cain says he doesn’t remember this woman whom, according to her, he met exactly twice in 1997. Since then, Cain has run for Senate in Georgia, built a career as a radio talk-show host, survive Stage 4 cancer, spoken at scores of Tea Party rallies, and launched a yearlong campaign for president. Yet if such a busy man says he doesn’t remember a woman he supposedly met twice 14 years ago, Allred wants us to conclude, Cain must be lying!
And if Cain is innocent, what’s wrong with “blanket denials”? Allred would have made a fine prosecutor in the Moscow show trials.