Category: Shoe Leather Fund

Fear and Loathing at the #NRISummit: Can We Survive the Sarcasm Deficit?

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Perhaps National Review‘s famed cartoonist Roman Genn can do a savage caricature of the donnybrook brawl I’ve been trying to incite for this weekend’s National Review Institute “Future of Conservatism” Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Was it a smart career move to kick Jonah Goldberg in the knee? No, of course not, but there are a lot of things I’ve done over the years that could be characterized as the diametric opposite of “smart career moves.” I’ve always preferred the Eric Stratton Philosophy of Life:

Boon: I gotta work on my game.
Otter: No, no, no! Don’t think of it as work. The whole point is just to enjoy yourself.

Some readers misunderstood my purpose in subjecting Jonah Goldberg to the kind of blunt sarcasm I habitually aim at liberals. Do I want a fight with Jonah? Oh, hell, no — he’s the size of a linebacker, and I’m not enough of a journalistic celebrity to rely on the “David Gregory Loophole” in D.C.’s strict gun-control policy. So I’ll be unarmed and defenseless when I show up at the National Review Summit this afternoon.

Although I understand they’ve hired heavy security at the Omni Shoreham to deal with any troublemakers, what’s to stop Jonah Goldberg from slipping the guards $100 to look the other way while he pounds my head up against a brick wall?

No, I don’t want to go mano a mano with that savage giant. My point in depicting the NRI Summit as a conclave of effete snobs was to incite grassroots resentment, to inspire a populist mob to pay their $250 and show up at the Omni Shoreham howling for blood: Stir up some kind of controversy — “fireworks” as the headline-writers say — that will provide an approximation of actual news for me to report.

Readers who contribute to the Shoe Leather Fund aren’t paying me to go down to D.C. so I can write up the tedious proceedings of a series of panel discussions. No, the tip-jar hitters want some real news: At least a couple of angry shouting matches, if not indeed a brutal mob beatdown on Joe Scarborough. It was a smart idea to invite America’s Least Popular “Republican” TV Personality™ to this event, if only on the basis on the venerable principle that there is no such thing as bad publicity, except your own obituary. Speaking of obituaries . . .

When I told a certain investigative journalist friend of mine I was coming to town for the NRI Summit, he said, “You mean the one with the panel on ‘what’s wrong with the Right,’ where the answer to the question is, ‘The people on stage’?”

Panel: What is Wrong with the Right?
Moderator: Reihan Salam, National Review Online
Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard
Yuval Levin, National Affairs
John Podhoretz, Commentary Magazine
Joe Scarborough, MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’
Ross Douthat, New York Times

Notice — and I hate to be the one to point this out — that there isn’t a single female or Latino on that panel? So there’s one answer to your question: “Intellectuals who are clueless about optics.” This is not to endorse a tokenistic system of affirmative action among the rightward intelligentsia, but when you exclude key demographics and the closest thing to a “youth” presence you can offer is 33-year-old Harvard classmates Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat . . .

Finish that sentence however you want.

If the proprietors of Conservatism, Inc., want to run their operation as an Old Boys Club for Ivy Leaguers, who am I to object? It’s a free country. My advice was never solicited, and it’s unlikely the heirs of the Buckley Legacy would listen if I offered unsolicited advice. So I kick ’em in the knee, give ’em free publicity, and hope maybe some of our readers will pay $250 for the right to ask a few pointed questions.

And, honestly, it won’t be a totally lame snobfest. A few of the participants in this weekend’s NRI Summit proceedings:

Mark Steyn, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, Charles Krauthammer, Laura Ingraham, Michael Barone, Kathryn Lopez, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Mona Charen, Mia Love, Peter Thiel, Mark Krikorian, James Pethokoukis, Amity Shlaes, Kevin Williamson, Robert Costa, Jay Nordlinger, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, John O’Sullivan, Larry Kudlow, Ed Whelan, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, John Fund, Tim Phillips, Heather Higgins, Kellyanne Conway, Cleta Mitchell, Jim Geraghty, Jim DeMint, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Arthur Brooks, Maggie Gallagher, Brad Wilcox and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal

Maybe you think all of those people are part of the problem, and you can pay $250 to get in their face and tell ’em so. But surely any conservative could look at that list and see at least a few names that might be part of the solution, and you can pay $250 to show up and cheer them.

The point is that I’m not anti-NRI Summit. I am anti-boredom, however, and even if the angry dissent and controversy — “fireworks”! — are as dramatically phony as professional wrestling, we need some infighting and bloodletting and perhaps even random violence among the panelists, if only to justify my spending a weekend in D.C.

If you’re not going to pay $250 to attend this event, it would be absurd for me to expect you to hit my tip jar for $10 or $20 just so I could write up a bunch of intellectual navel-gazing and tepid policy discussions. No, you want some real live action for me to report:

WASHINGTON, D.C.
Conservative journalist John Podoretz is “expected to recover” from the critical injuries he suffered during a savage fistfight that broke out Saturday afternoon during a panel discussion on immigration policy at the National Review Institute Summit.
Podhoretz was “conscious and responsive,” said a spokesman at George Washington University Hospital, where the Commentary magazine editor was rushed by paramedics after he charged the stage during a presentation by Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies.
“It was totally unexpected,” said Krikorian, who was questioned and released by Metropolitan Police. “All I did was defend myself.”
Stunned witnesses said Podhoretz seemed to become agitated when Krikorian made several sarcastic references to the “open borders lobby” and “gutless neocons” whom he blamed for recent political setbacks suffered by the Republican Party.
“John started trembling and then his face became contorted by rage,” said Jim Geraghty, a National Review staffer who was moderating the panel. Geraghty said that Podhoretz shouted “anti-Armenian slurs” before charging across the ballroom at the Omni Shoreham Hotel and attempting to attack Krikorian, who responded by slamming Podhoretz into the floor. . . .

Could that really happen? We certainly can’t rule it out. Bad blood between Krikorian and the “gutless neocons” has been brewing for years. Everybody knows who he’s talking about. Podhoretz’s irrational Fear and Loathing of Armenians isn’t exactly a secret, either.

That’s why readers want to contribute to the Shoe Leather Fund and send me down to D.C. for the weekend: If there’s going to be trouble — and it’s at least an outside possibility these vicious internecine rivalries might lead to an all-out riot at the National Review Institute Summit — you’re gonna want me to provide an on-the-scene report of this epic battle. Because I’m strictly a Neutral Objective Journalist.





 

 


The Problem With ‘Sponsored Content’: Atlantic Unpublishes Scientology Article

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How do you turn pixels into profits? This is an industry-wide issue for journalism in the digital New Media age, and the “sponsored content” approach — selling ads that look like articles — is supposed to be the wave of the future. Well . . .

The Atlantic apparently sold space to the Church Creepy Ripoff Brainwashing Cult of Scientology for an “advertorial” with this headline:

David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year

To say the very least, the article attracted unflattering attention:

The Atlantic — the one time publisher of Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edith Wharton — is now publishing blatant Scientology propaganda. The “sponsored content,” which went up Monday around noon, features all sorts of breathless praise for Scientology and its alleged growth last year.
The post is basically one long tribute to David Miscavige, the “ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion” . . .

Given the high-toned image and upscale readership of the Atlantic, this invitation to public ridicule was an embarrassment to the staff:

Twitchy collected the ROTFLMAO reaction from Twitter, and MediaGazer aggregated the firestorm of journalistic shame, which predictably ended with the de-publication of the non-article:

The Atlantic has U-turned on its controversial paid-for feature article from the Church of Scientology. The publication had sparked a debate on media ethics and business models after allowing the advertorial from the religious group to appear on its site but — as of 21:00, UTC-8 — the page now redirects to one with the following message: “We have temporarily suspended this advertising campaign pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads.”

Of course, this is just an occasion to laugh at the snobbish hypocrisy of the Atlantic, another elite-oriented neoliberal institution caught in the economic crunch that has affected so many other Legacy Media outposts. Paying for actual journalism in a post-literate age is an increasing challenge for every outfit not attached to an entertainment conglomerate that can afford to subsidize the written word as a “loss leader.”

For my own Shameless Capitalist self, I say shop our Amazon specials and remember the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!
A Feasible Alternative to Scientology Ads, So Far

 

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll offers a dish best served cold:

As I said, “Old Media Belatedly Discovers That Elections Have Consequences”‘ the moribund Obamaconomy is impacting the Atlantic as well.

The widespread belief among journalists that they can safely ignore market forces is crumbling under the weight of contradictory evidence. Jeff Bercovici of Forbes notes that it took less than 12 hours for the Atlantic to pull the ad, and issue an embarrassed statement:

We screwed up. It shouldn’t have taken a wave of constructive criticism — but it has — to alert us that we’ve made a mistake, possibly several mistakes. We now realize that as we explored new forms of digital advertising, we failed to update the policies that must govern the decisions we make along the way. It’s safe to say that we are thinking a lot more about these policies after running this ad than we did beforehand. In the meantime, we have decided to withdraw the ad until we figure all of this out. We remain committed to and enthusiastic about innovation in digital advertising, but acknowledge — sheepishly — that we got ahead of ourselves. We are sorry, and we’re working very hard to put things right.

Maybe the Atlantic can sell out to the Qatari oil sheikhs . . .

 


OHIO: IT’S MITT’S TO WIN

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Volunteers make calls at Americans for Prosperity phone bank in Ohio

BLUE ASH, Ohio
We’re at the center of the storm — ground zero of the entire presidential campaign — and you’d think this might provide some special insight into the ultimate outcome of the election. Not so. Ali’s spent the morning pondering the Electoral College map, trying to make his final predictions.

Fortunately for me, I’m a reporter, not an operative, a consultant, an analyst, a pundit or whatever you want to call Nate Silver. What I’d call Nate Silver is an Anglo-Saxon comp0und word with 10 letters. It’s not “psephological godhood,” although I’m grateful to Colby Cosh for teaching me that word.

Making predictions is above my pay-grade, although I’ve occasionally ventured a prophecy based on omens and portents, but there have been no earthquakes in Vanuatu lately, so I have no claim to know the mysterious will of God in this election. Selah.

Eight days into this Ohio road trip, I’m sick of all these experts who issue their pronouncements from the comfort of their living rooms without ever having set foot in a swing state, pundits whose idea of a “road trip” is blogging from their neighborhood Starbucks.

To hell with Nate Silver, and to hell with all the rest of them, these stationary buddhas of political prognostication, journalistic intellectuals who consider mere reporting to be beneath their dignity. You won’t find any graduates of the Kennedy School of Government sleeping on the floors of motel rooms and eating crappy breakfast food from the nearest convenience store. But I digress . . .

 

In the Information Age, everybody can see the polls, and this has been the most extensively polled presidential race in American history. Yet we arrive at Election Day with the outcome still very much in doubt, thanks to the cleverness of the Romney campaign. It was brilliant how, in the past 10 days, Mitt’s team seized the initiative and “expanded the map,” making plays in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. With the polls showing Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Iowa and Colorado all within the margin of error, Romney made a bold gamble that clearly confused Obama’s brain trust: Was Mitt really so confident of carrying the key swing states that he felt he had the luxury of pushing for a mandate or, alternatively, was Mitt so worried about the Ohio polls that he was seeking an alternate route to 270 Electoral College votes?

At this point, it’s moot. The upshot is that Romney’s gamble threw the Chicago gang off-stride, forcing them to send Obama and his top surrogates to play defense in states that had been thought safely “blue,” preventing the Democrats from piling everything they had into Ohio. Granted, Romney has had to make visits to defend Florida and Virginia — both of which should be safely in his column on Election Night — but somewhere in the third week of October, looking at the Big Picture, Mitt decided to go big or go home, and this is perhaps the only reason that he’s still in the game on this final Monday.

If he had played it safe, Romney would have lost. As it is, he’s got a chance to win, a chance that’s certainly greater than the 13.7% Nate Silver gives him. And here in Ohio, with the Republican ground game running at Full-Tilt Boogie speed, the two most recent polls — by Rasmussen and the University of Cincinnati — show a dead heat. And here’s the lunatic gibberish I filed from the Double Tree Hotel lobby at midnight:

Tens of thousands of Republicans were jammed into a Friday night rally in the Cincinnati suburb of West Chester, and Ron Sokol leaned over the crowd-control barricade to talk about what he’s witnessed during his door-to-door canvassing expeditions.
“Between now and 2008, I see a world of difference,” Sokol said, explaining how much more enthusiasm there is for GOP nominee Mitt Romney — and how much less for Barack Obama. Sokol also mentioned that Republican get-out-the-vote operations here in Butler County have been bolstered by an influx of volunteers from around the country. “I see people from Tennessee, Texas, Indiana — everywhere.”
Eyewitness accounts like Sokol’s are routinely dismissed by analysts as mere anecdotes and, even though it is proverbial that the plural of “anecdote” is data, such tales don’t count for much among the gurus, soothsayers, and other savants who arrogate to themselves the mantle of political expertise. But why bring up Nate Silver at this late stage of the campaign?
The statistical wizard of the New York Times has gone so far out on a limb with his prediction of an Obama victory that Silver might as well pull a Joe Namath and guarantee it. Late Saturday, he peered into his vaunted “Forecasting Model” and raised the likelihood of the president’s election to 85.1 percent, the one-tenth of a percentage point being the gimmick by which Silver provides his guesstimate with the illusion of scientific precision. Whatever his qualifications as a political analyst, Silver may be the most successful public-relations man since Eddie Bernays. His self-created aura of infallibility has made Silver a vital bulwark of the Obama campaign, which fed him their internal polling data (and signed him to a confidentiality agreement) in 2008 when he was openly advocating the Democrat’s candidacy on his own blog.
These days, as Mike Flynn of Breitbart.com says, Silver has become “the patron saint of confirmation bias,” providing statistics that support the liberal True Believer’s faith in the ultimate triumph of Obama. . . .

Read the rest at The American Spectator. There’s a Romney rally this afternoon at the Columbus airport.

We’re going. Please hit the freaking tip jar!




 

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BREAKING NEWS FROM OHIO: REPUBLICAN WOMEN ARE HOT

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Ann Romney (center) with Jane Portman and Cindy McCain

HAMILTON, Ohio
At the Vinylmax window factory here, about 150 Republicans — mostly women — gathered for an event with Ann Romney, who was joined by Jane Portman (wife of Ohio Sen. Rob Portman) and Cindy McCain (about whose senator husband and celebrity daughter, we will politely say nothing). And as I was editing the photos, I couldn’t help but say to myself, “Wow. Ann Romney is seriously good-looking.”

Is this superficial? Is this . . . sexist?

Who cares? It’s simply a Neutral Objective Fact. Mitt married a total fox, and the fact that she’s the mother of five sons (and the grandmother of approximately a gazillion little Romneys) does nothing to diminish the importance of Mrs. Romney’s awesome babeness. So . . .

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, the news: Mrs. Romney began by demonstrating to the crowd how to donate to the Red Cross via their cellphones. And then she told stories.

Apparently, the campaign has decided that the candidate’s wife is very good at narrative, so while Mitt’s always talking issues, issues, issues, Ann’s job is to tell heart-warming, humanizing anecdotes about her husband (who, for the sake of journalistic “balance,” must be acknowledged as ruggedly handsome in an executive kind of way).

Mrs. Romney talked abut the process of deciding whether Mitt, who lost the GOP nomination to Cindy’s husband in 2008, would run again in 2012. “I asked Mitt, ‘Is it too late to save the country?'” She then said, “It will be too late if we have another four years of this,” before relating how she told Mitt: “You must run. You have to save the country.”

That may seem like political hyperbole to some, but I consider it a Neutral Objective Fact. America must elect Mitt Romney president, so that his extremely good-looking wife can be the next First Lady of the United States — and I can become the U.S. Ambassador to Vanuatu.

But first things first, eh? As Jane Portman told the crowd: “We’ve got six more days to avoid four more years.” And here are the photos:

Lilly Ann Baker, 7, is interviewed by the local ABC affiliate, while her mother Andrea Baker watches. Lilly Ann is a second-grader at Riverview Elementary, which is kind of young to begin a career as a TV political commentator, but she knows more about Ohio than does Nate Silver.

Ann Romney shakes hands with one of her adoring fans. Let me ask you: Have you seen any stories in the mainstream media about how enormously popular Ann Romney is? Do the TV networks report about how she’s always mobbed by autograph-seekers after her speeches? And if not, why not? My theory is, the biased liberal media are purposely suppressing this news, the same way they’re sitting on the Benghazi story.

Mrs. Romney hands back a child’s boot that she just autographed. This is my favorite photo from today and, by the way, you can click on any of these photos to see them full-sized.

This is a classic part of the campaign-trail experience: TV crews interviewing the locals. It happens at every event from the Iowa caucus campaign all the way to the White House: Some random person is grabbed by a TV reporter and presented to viewers as the “typical voter.” When I see this, I just thank God that none of Mitt’s supporters could possibly be as stupid as Peggy Joseph.

OK, so much for my own snarktastic response. I’m blogging this at Panera Bread — free WiFi! — where we had a working lunch with Ali Akbar, another conservative activist who shall remain nameless, and Ohio blogger Becca Lower, whose headline for today’s event is:

Ann Romney to Red-county Ohio
Families: Help is on the way. Soon.

UPDATE: The science is settled!

Study: Female GOP politicians are
better looking than liberal politicians

Hat-tip to Wright Shumate on Twitter.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers! And this seems like a good time to mention that bringing you the important news from Ohio is possible only because of our readers’ generous contributions to The Shoe Leather Fund. It’s not tax-deductible, nor is it charitable. I’m proud to be a Shameless Capitalist Blogger, and this is just a sort of online expense account that makes possible this bizarre experiment in reader-supported journalism: This has never been done before because nobody else would be crazy enough to try it.

We’ve already logged thousands of miles in campaign-trail travel this year and now, with just six days to go, I remind you once again of the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!




 

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SCENES FROM ROMNEY-RYAN RALLY

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Children cheer Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney in Marion, Ohio

MARION, Ohio
Last night I was on deadline and didn’t have time to upload photos from the Romney-Ryan “Victory Rally” at the Marion County Fairgrounds Coliseum, so here they are:

Paul Ryan addresses the crowd while Mitt Romney, Rob Portman, and Janna Ryan listen.

“Campaign Carl” Cameron makes his live broadcast for Fox News.

A little girl shows her support for Mitt Romney.

A vendor sells Romney-Ryan campaign buttons outside the event.

Romney rocks ’em at the rally.

Republican Senate candidate Josh Mandel is interviewed by an Australian TV reporter. Have they ever heard of “Rule 5” in Australia?

Romney senior adviser Kevin Madden is interviewed by Zeke Miller of BuzzFeed.

Ali Akbar poses with @FairTaxNancy.

For the worry-wart poll-watchers: Republicans are winning this state, and are winning nationally. Headline on today’s Pew Poll:

Presidential Race Dead Even;
Romney Maintains Turnout Edge

Tonight, Ali and I are going to meet with some Republican operatives in Columbus. Please hit the tip jar.




 

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FROM OHIO: Schedule Scrambled; Obama, Romney Cancel Campaign Events

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MARION, Ohio
Looks like Hurricane Sandy has already caused major damage to my plans for the next couple of days, as both Mitt Romney and President Obama are canceling campaign events because of Hurricane Sandy’s impact on the East Coast. By the way, this storm is so large we’re getting effects as far inland as Ohio.

UPDATE: I’ll be uploading photos from last night’s rally here, but meanwhile here’s the report:

Paul Ryan stood onstage Sunday evening and told a fired-up crowd of nearly 5,000 supporters, “As Ohio goes, so goes America.”
Few would argue with the Republican vice presidential candidate. Of the 11 states rated as “toss ups” by Real Clear Politics, none is more fiercely contested than the Buckeye State, whose 18 Electoral College votes appear destined to decide this election. And the latest poll, commissioned by a consortium of Ohio’s eight largest newspapers, shows the state a dead heat, with 49 percent each for GOP challenger Mitt Romney and President Obama. Perhaps more important, the poll conducted Oct. 18-23 by University of Cincinnati’s Institute for Policy Research, showed Romney has gained three points — and Obama has lost two points — since September, when Obama led 51-46 in Ohio.
This net five-point shift in the Ohio newspaper poll substantially mirrors a general trend, as Romney has improved his standing in the RCP average for the state by a net 3.5 points since Sept. 30. And while Obama still leads most Ohio polls (by an average 2.1 points), “The trendline is going in our direction,” senior Romney campaign adviser Kevin Madden said Sunday night during the rally at the Marion County Fairgrounds Coliseum. . . .

Read the rest at The American Spectator.

UPDATE II: Of course, when a crisis hits, nobody answers their phones, so I’m still scrambling to get specific details from Romney’s campaign, which has yet to issue an “Updated Media Advisory” on their schedule. Probably everybody’s on conference calls right now. Meanwhile, the lobby of this hotel is full of guys who look a lot like Secret Service agents and there’s an SUV in the parking lot with Virginia tags and a Romney/Ryan bumper sticker — probably a campaign staffer. Here’s the latest poll talk from Fred Barnes at The Weekly Standard:

The bipartisan Battleground Poll, in its “vote election model,” is projecting that Mitt Romney will defeat President Obama 52 percent to 47 percent. . . .
While Obama can close the gap with a strong voter turnout effort, “reports from the field would indicate that not to be the case, and Mitt Romney may well be heading to a decisive victory,” says pollster Ed Goeas. . . .
The poll’s election model takes into account variables including voter intensity, age, and education, and voters who are certain in their vote. The race “remains very close in the surface,” Goeas said, “but the political environment and the composition of the likely electorate favor Governor Romney.”

UPDATE III: Went out to the nearest convenience store and grabbed a copy of the local newspaper, the Marion Star which — historians will note — was once published by a guy named Warren G. Harding. The front page of the paper today is dominated by two stories covering Sunday’s rally:

Romney, Ryan rouse crowd

Audience comes away
filled with enthusiasm

This is from the second story:

MARION – Energized and pumped up was how the crowd left Veterans Memorial Coliseum Sunday night after attending the “Victory In Ohio” rally for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
There are nine more days until there will be a change, Romney emphasized, encouraging people to get out and vote early or on Nov. 6 for him and his running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan.
Sara Lawhon and her daughter, Erin, came over from Mount Vernon.
“I’m excited,” Sara said. “It’s fun to be in the same room with people cheering for the same thing and feeling the same way you do.”
Erin, 14, still has four more years before she will be able to vote, but she shared her mother’s excitement.
“I thought he was honest and truthful,” she said. “He went by the heart because he believes in it.”

Mount Vernon is in adjacent Knox County. Just got this via e-mail from a friend on the Romney campaign staff: “Daveport is on today, but all other events today and tomorrow are cancelled. Will update with details when we have them.”

UPDATE IV: Hot Air headline on story from Katie Pavlich at Townhall:

Obama campaign warns against politicizing
hurricane as Bill Clinton politicizes it

UPDATE V: Thanks to Finrod in the comments for the news that Rasmussen’s latest Ohio poll has Romney 50, Obama 48.

Of course, Nate Silver has raised Obama’s re-election chances to 74.6%, because . . . Objectivity!




 

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STORM CANCELS ROMNEY VIRGINIA EVENTS; OHIO, HERE WE COME UPDATE: BOOM! Mitt Romney Endorsed by Des Moines Register

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Press release from Romney-Ryan HQ:

Boston, MA – On Sunday, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will continue the bus tour across the Buckeye State by attending Victory Events at Celina Fieldhouse in Celina, Ohio and the University of Findlay in Findlay, Ohio, where they will be joined by Big & Rich. They will then attend a Victory Rally at the Marion County Fairgrounds Coliseum in Marion, Ohio. Please note that Mitt Romney’s events in Virginia have been postponed due to public safety concerns.

Just got this word about an hour ago. I had been planning to attend the Romney rally in Haymarket, Virginia, but now have changed plans and will be going to Ohio instead.

UPDATE: Here’s the NBC News report:

The approach of Hurricane Sandy along the East Coast forced Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to scrap a planned campaign swing Sunday in Virginia, rerouting the GOP contender to the battleground state of Ohio instead.
“I was looking forward to being in Virginia tomorrow but you know the hurricane is headed up there, and I just spoke with the governor, Governor [Bob] McDonnell, and the governor and I talked about that. He said, you know, the first responders really need to focus on preparation for the storm, so we’re not going to be able to be in Virginia tomorrow, we’re going to Ohio instead,” Romney told some 4000 supporters at a rally [in Kissimmee] Saturday.

UPDATE II: Just calculated the drive time to Marion, Ohio, which will be the last of three stops on the Romney-Ryan Sunday tour of Ohio:

  • Celina Fieldhouse
    585 East Livingston Street, Celina, Ohio
    Doors Open: 11:30 AM EDT
    Invite Time: 1:30 PM EDT
  • University of Findlay
    Koehler Athletic Complex
    1000 North Main Street, Findlay, Ohio
    Doors Open: 2:00 PM EDT
    Invite Time: 4:00 PM EDT
  • Marion County Fairgrounds Coliseum
    220 East Fairgrounds Street, Marion, Ohio
    Doors Open: 4:30 PM EDT
    Invite Time: 6:30 PM EDT

I’d love to be at the Findlay event — which will feature country superstars Big & Rich in concert — but there’s just no way. Making it to Marion in time will be pushing it pretty hard.

UPDATE III: So this is it, I guess. My plan had been to see Mitt in Virginia before heading to Ohio for a week, but now it’s an early departure to Ohio, thanks to a freak late-season hurricane.

Ali Akbar will join me on this expedition, continuing a three-year adventure that goes back to when we first met during the legendary NY-23 campaign of Doug Hoffman in 2009. The Hoffman campaign — the first true test of the Tea Party movement as a political force — now seems like a million years ago. But then again, the Iowa caucuses seem like a million years ago, too, and that was only last January. It’s been a wild ride, and it promises to get wilder yet.

By the way, Smitty went by to see Dan Riehl today. As my Twitter followers know, Dan is doing a bit better, and is now out of the ICU. He should continue to be in our prayers, and if you haven’t hit Dan’s tip jar yet, now’s the time to do it. I gave him another $25 today myself.

All the signs and omens are propitious, you see, and I just got word that the Des Moines Register has endorsed Romney. “Preference cascade.”

UPDATE IV: From the Des Moines Register endorsement:

The Register’s editorial board, as it should, had a vigorous debate over this endorsement. Our discussion repeatedly circled back to the nation’s single most important challenge: pulling the economy out of the doldrums, getting more Americans back in the workforce in meaningful jobs with promising futures, and getting the federal government on a track to balance the budget in a bipartisan manner that the country demands.
Which candidate could forge the compromises in Congress to achieve these goals? When the question is framed in those terms, Mitt Romney emerges the stronger candidate.

It’s the first time they’ve endorsed a Republican in 40 years.

UPDATE V: Notorious partisan cheerleader polling expert Nate Silver just went all-in, raising Obama’s chances of re-election to 74.4%.

UPDATE VI: Smitty has an update on Dan Riehl’s condition.





Your Honor, May I Direct the Court’s Attention to Exhibit J, Please?
UPDATE: Who Is ‘Forced to Engage’?

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Brett Kimberlin could have been sentenced to 230 years in federal prison

In the case of Walker v. Kimberlin, Exhibit J is an e-mail that Brett Kimberlin, acting as his own lawyer, sent to Aaron Walker’s attorney Dan Backer, stating in part:

I don’t know what kind of litigation you think this is but I see it as a form of harassment. You are trying to get discovery in a case that fails to state a valid legal claim, that is whole frivolous and malicious, and which,  if you proceed, will subject you to sanctions.
You have filed for default against people you haven’t served and who have no assets whatsoever. Ok let’s take this to the next step. You get default, then what? Get a hearing on damages? Go after their assets? They have none. So really you are just harassing them. You should really be ashamed of yourself for being party to such reprehensible conduct.
As I said, I have chosen December 15 because, inter alia, I am coopering with nthe FBI and other law enforcement officials regarding several issues involving your client and I believe that the resolution of those matters will have a bearing on this case.

Let’s point out a few things, shall we?

  • Aaron Walker has said that Kimberlin, among other things, tried to “frame” him for a bogus assault charge.
  • Kimberlin is an expert on “frivolous and malicious” legal actions, having filed more than 100 actions on his own behalf as a “jailhose lawyer” while he was imprisoned for the 1978 bombing spree in Indiana that earned him the sobriquet, “The Speedway Bomber.”
  • Kimberlin dares speak of “harassment,” when Kimberlin has sued blogger Seth Allen and threatened to sue journalist Mandy Nagy and blogger Patrick Frey for nothing other than the fact that they have written about Kimberlin’s notorious criminal history. Furthermore, Kimberlin has made spurious complaints in an attempt to get Frey fired from his job.
  • Kimberlin refers to (but does not name) his co-defendants, Neal Rauhauser and Ron Brynaert, asserting that they “have no assets whatsoever” — how does Kimberlin know this? How is it that he is privy to the financial condition of Rauhauser and Brynaert? And what business of Kimberlin’s what sort of motions Backer has filed against Rauhauser and Brynaert?

The alleged relationship between Kimberlin, Rauhauser and Brynaert is at the very heart of Walker’s case. Continue reading Your Honor, May I Direct the Court’s Attention to Exhibit J, Please?
UPDATE: Who Is ‘Forced to Engage’? →