LIVE AT FIVE – 01.12.12

According to CNN’s criteria for inclusion, a candidate must get at least 4th place in either Iowa or New Hampshire, or get 7% support in at least three national Republican or three South Carolina primary polls released in January. The requirements were posted online last Tuesday afternoon, several hours before the Iowa caucuses began later that night.
Perry came in fifth place in Iowa, and sixth in New Hampshire. And currently, his national and South Carolina poll numbers do not show him meeting that threshold, either.

Never mind, says CNN, they’re including Perry anyway.

Because to do otherwise would be . . . well, heartless.

Category: CNN, Debates, Election 2012, Rick Perry, South Carolina

Are The Taiwanese Animators Tantamount To Rosie O’Donnell In The Steel Bikini And Winged Helm?

Posted on | January 11, 2012 | 26 Comments

by Smitty

The Sisyphus imagery for Ron Paul really makes this one:I, for one, disagree. How many actual delegates have been committed? If Tea Partiers want to roll over for Mitt, he can certainly coast from here.

However, keep in mind that neither Mitt nor these animators write the history in isolation. It wasn’t over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, and it’s not over because Santorum bombed in New Hampshire.

And should Mitt succeed in gaining the nomination, it’s important for him to know that support in the general election does not translate into a honeymoon: #OccupyResoluteDesk has destroyed all patience with autocratic twerps in the White House.

Via Insty, I really hope we don’t go down the road of wondering if Mitt actually won, in either NH or IA. Too much is at stake to deal with ambiguity here, and the anti-voter ID weenies, when they take a break from global warming hysteria and hating the unborn, are looking increasingly stupid.

via Legal Insurrection

Category: Election 2012

Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Seventeen Days on the Campaign Trail

Posted on | January 11, 2012 | 5 Comments

P.J. O’Rourke encounters Andrew Breitbart at the
Manchester, N.H., Radisson Bar, Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012

PHILADELPHIA
“Wheels up” from Boston’s Logan Airport was at 1:09 p.m., and as Flight 1727 ascended from the runway, I noticed the houses that dotted the little spits of land jutting out into the bay. There were docks and piers and even an apartment building or two, and from my window seat (5A) I looked down and wondered about the people who live there in the airport flight path. Then the US Airways jet banked right, toward the south and, after a while, I recognized the familiar fishook shape of the Provincetown peninsula.

Flying has become a more commonplace experience for me in the past three years of campaign coverage, but it’s not so common that I take it for granted. I still pray at takeoff — the most dangerous part of any flight — and take notes about my journeys, even if I never actually turn those notes into anything for publication.

Half a century ago, the phrase “jet set” described the lives of the glitterati, in an age when frequent air travel was the prerogative of the affluent. Nowadays, air travel is for everybody: salesmen and tourists and even bloggers out covering the presidential election campaign. So it was that I found myself sitting in coach class reading the New York Times on my flight from Boston to Philly.

Nobody on the plane recognized me as a “media celebrity,” even though only a few days earlier I’d been hanging out with guys like Jake Tapper and Andrew Breitbart in Manchester. Also, the man with the hat with the pink camera kept showing up in the background of TV shots like this Monday interview with CNN’s Dana Bash and Ron Paul:

Hey, I’m just a blogger. During the course of this trip, by my count, I’ve filed 51 posts in 17 days, in addition to 11 columns for The American Spectator:

A Cruel Night in New Hampshire January 11, 2012
Ron Paul Haunts New Hampshire January 10, 2012
Is It Still Mitt’s Turn? January 9, 2012
Will New Hampshire ‘Join the Fight’? January 6, 2012
An All-American Miracle January 4, 2012
Waiting for Answers in Iowa January 3, 2012
Hope in the Heartland January 2, 2012
Weird Week in the Hawkeye State December 30, 2011
Iowa’s Final Flavor of the Month? December 29, 2011
Generic Republican December 28, 2011
Hunting in the Hawkeye State December 27, 2011

It’s been a pretty productive trip, whatever the discouragement of Mitt Romney’s continued march toward “inevitability.” Maybe we can stop him in South Carolina, but first I’ve got to fly home for a couple of days.

The National Affairs Desk at the Riverbend Bar & Grill,
Philadelphia Airport, 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012

My flight to D.C. takes off in less than an hour, and I’ve got to close down the National Affairs Desk here at the airport hotel bar and make it through the routine security hassles before they call final boarding. This leaves me just enough time to write The Five Most Important Words in the English Language: Hit the freaking tip jar!

— 30 —

RECENTLY:

Jan. 11:Philly Layover Musings: The Republican Party Is Depraved and Decadent
Jan. 11: Departing from Logan: Live Free or …
Jan. 10: NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY HQ UPDATE: Romney Wins; Ron Paul Second; Huntsman Third; Gingrich, Santorum Fight for Fourth Place
Jan. 10: Maybe This Explains My Problem
Jan. 10: Ron Paul and the ‘Not Romneys’
Jan. 10: Rick Santorum Dodges an Issue?
Jan. 9: Among the Paulistas in New Hampshire
Jan. 9: Ron Paul Campaign Flyer Emphasizes Opposition to Gay Marriage, Abortion
Jan. 9: Media Mayhem in the Granite State
Jan. 8: Bitter Fruits of a Bitter Seed: Envy, Feminism, Maureen and Meghan
Jan. 9: Sunday Morning Coming Down in New Hampshire ‘Meet the Depressed’ Debate
Jan. 7: POST-DEBATE SPIN ROOM
Jan. 7: ABC NEW HAMPSHIRE DEBATE
Jan. 7: Santorum Surge Hits Hollis, N.H. UPDATE: Photos, Videos Added
Jan. 7: Cain Still Loved in New Hampshire
Jan. 7: Rick Santorum Speech in Nashua: ‘New Hampshire, Send a Message’
Jan. 6: Two Excellent Arguments in Favor of a Jon Huntsman Presidency
Jan. 6: Newt Meets the Media in Nashua
Jan. 6: Ron Paul Rally in Nashua, N.H.
Jan. 5: Rick Santorum in Windham, N.H.
Jan. 5: Rick Santorum in Concord, N.H.
Jan. 5: Greetings From the Granite State!
Jan. 5: Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Eight Days in a Mustang Later …
Jan. 4: Iowa Victory Lap
Jan. 4: Bachmann Quits 2012 Campaign
Jan. 4: News Of Rick Santorum’s Iowa Triumph Reaches A Certain Bunker. . .
Jan. 3: IOWA CAUCUS RESULTS HQ UPDATE: Santorum Surge in Precinct Numbers Exceeds Poll Projections
Jan. 3: Pre-Caucus Night Nap Time
Jan. 3: Desperate Hours in the Hawkeye State
Jan. 3: Remember the Crying Girl?
Jan. 2: Santorum, Duggars, And Fundraising As The Deadline Looms
Jan. 2: Media Scrum Is Heavy At Santorum Event
Jan. 2: Santorum Attacked in Iowa With Same Smear Used Earlier Against Gingrich
Jan. 2: The Familiar Pattern Emerges Again
Jan. 1: Don’t Underestimate Rick Santorum’s Campaign Strength in New Hampshire
Jan. 1: Rick Santorum Talks Steelers Football
Jan. 1: SANTORUM SURGE SUNDAY: Final Poll Makes Front-Page News in Des Moines
Dec. 31: ‘Occupy’ Protesters at Bachmann HQ: Proof That Gardasil Causes Retardation?
Dec. 31: Michele Bachmann Flyer Omits Comparison to Records of Santorum, Paul
Dec. 31: Perry Campaign’s Amateur Hour
Dec. 30: ‘Quite a Difference!’
Dec. 30: Guess Who’s Gonna Be Watching Hawkeye Football Tonight With Rick Santorum?
Dec. 30: New Polls Confirm Santorum Surge in Iowa; Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry Fading
Dec. 30: Rick Santorum to Ann Coulter: ‘I Mean, Ann, Should I Have Voted for Amnesty?’
Dec. 29: IOWA NOTEBOOK: Occupy Caucuses?
Dec. 29: ‘Everyone Sells Out in Iowa’
Dec. 29: Rick Santorum Gets ‘The Kind of Optics a Cash-Strapped Candidate Can’t Buy’
Dec. 28: SANTORUM SURGE: Finally, the Polls in Iowa Are Catching Up With … Me
Dec. 28: Greetings From the Quad City
Dec. 28: When the Story Writes Itself
Dec. 27: The Santorum Surge: Mainstream Media Finally Beginning to See Omens in Iowa
Dec. 27: Republicans With Shotguns
Dec. 26: Santorum Gets 4 ‘Clean Kills’ in Pheasant Hunt With Steve King; No Endorsement
Dec. 26: Greetings From Iowa
Dec. 26: Fear and Loathing at BWI
Dec. 25: Memo From the National Affairs Desk: How’s the Weather Today in Vanuatu?

Category: Election 2012, Fear. Loathing., Iowa, New Hampshire, Shoe Leather Fund

Philly Layover Musings: The Republican Party Is Depraved and Decadent

Posted on | January 11, 2012 | 34 Comments

PHILADELPHIA
With a three-hour layover in Philly, I logged on here at the Riverbend Bar & Grill at the airport Marriot, and the first thing I find atop the Memeorandum aggregation is my buddy Dave Weigel’s thoughts on the campaign to date:

I’m thinking of a Republican primary. It starts with a candidate (John McCain/Mitt Romney) who ran once before, came in second place, and won over the party’s elite class without winning over its base. Other candidates, understandably unwilling to accept this, line up: An under-funded social conservative (Mike Huckabee/Rick Santorum), an elder statesman who’s walked to the altar three times (Rudy Giuliani/Newt Gingrich), a libertarian who wants to bring back the gold standard (Ron Paul/Ron Paul).
The conservative base is displeased. In the year before the primary, it pines for a perfect candidate. At the end of summer, on (September 5/August 13), it gets him: (Fred Thompson/Rick Perry). The dream candidate immediately rises to the top of national polls, but collapses after lazy, distaff debate performances. When the primaries arrive, he’s in single digits and reduced to attacking the front-runners. But in Iowa, he does just well enough to justify staying in the race. . . .

Read the whole thing. The basic problem is this: The sincere idealists suffer from disastrous incompetence, while the selfish cynics are rewarded for their utter lack of ethics or principles. Decent and honest people, recognizing the GOP’s systemic incentives toward moral and political corruption, are repulsed by the shabby lies and vicious compromises necessary to “success” as a Republican, leaving the party to be controlled by a ruthless gang of dishonest jackals.

How else to explain the sadistic venality of those consultants and strategists who publicly backstabbed Newt in May and then hopped the next flight to Austin, where they have spent the past six months collecting fat paychecks in the service of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whose formerly excellent reputation his campaign staff has done everything possible to destroy. If he had quit after his humiliating fifth-place finish in Iowa, as any intelligent and honest person would have advised Perry to do, he might have preserved some shred of dignity. Instead, his consultants and strategists — knowing that Perry’s still got a few million bucks left in his campaign account — told him, “No, no, Boss! Don’t quit now! You can win this thing. Trust us.”

And so they’ll spend it all in South Carolina, continuing to pay fees, salaries and commissions to the cronies they’ve hired, and when all is said and done, they will have accomplished nothing but to turn Perry into one of the biggest laughingstocks in American political history, rivaled only by Jon Huntsman. Any politician who hires John Weaver to run their campaign deserves whatever catastrophic embarrassment subsequently befalls them.

The quality of hired help in the GOP has never been really good, and the people who donate money to Republicans ought to start making lists of operatives who hire on to disasters like the Perry and Huntsman campaigns. If any future camapign starts putting those incompetent clowns on its payroll, you’ll know not to give them a dime.

Join the Republican Party!
“We’re Probably Not the Worst Political Party in America”

Category: Dave Weigel, Election 2012, Jon Huntsman, Republicans, Rick Perry

Departing from Logan: Live Free or …

Posted on | January 11, 2012 | 40 Comments

“There was never enough time. Every deadline was a crisis. All around me were experienced professional journalists meeting deadlines far more frequent than mine, but I was never able to learn from their example.”
– Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72

BOSTON LOGAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
Pete Da Tech Guy woke me up about 9 o’clock this morning: “We both overslept! We’ve got to hurry!” But first he had to figure out how to connect the computer to the printer to print my boarding pass. Pete did some excellent driving to get me to the airport on time, and we listened to Boston talk radio on the way. with the question of the day being, “Is Mitt Romney inevitable? Is it all over but the shouting? Have all efforts to stop Mitt been a vain and futile waste of time? Should we jump off a bridge now, or wait until after the Florida primary?” (I paraphrase slightly.)

For conservatives, Tuesday was “A Cruel Night in New Hampshire“:

MANCHESTER, N.H. — About 40 percent of voters in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary cast their ballots for either Texas Rep. Ron Paul or former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who finished second and third behind the “It’s His Turn” Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Adding in Romney’s 39 percent, the top three finishers in the Granite State got nearly 80 percent of the vote — even though none of them can credibly claim to represent the mainstream of GOP conservatism that has developed over the past three decades. Romney, of course, has been on both sides of every important issue during his political career, having even denied any fealty to “Reagan-Bush” during his unsuccessful 1994 Senate race. Ron Paul’s foreign policy views are not merely at odds with mainstream Republicanism, but arguably put him to the left of President Obama. And Huntsman has not only embraced same-sex civil unions and global-warming theory, but has praised the Democratic president who appointed him ambassador to China.
Thus in New Hampshire, a state where independents are eligible to vote in the GOP primary, barely 20 percent of voters chose either of the conservative candidates — former House Speaker Newt Gingrich or former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum — who competed here. Gingrich and Santorum each got less than 10 percent of the vote, providing the only real suspense of the night with their see-saw battle for fourth place. Texas Gov. Rick Perry didn’t even bother to campaign in the Granite State, and got about 1,500 votes. And so the first-in-the-nation primary ends with the fight for the Republican nomination exactly where it was when the campaign started, with Romney as the pre-emptive favorite. . . .

That’s from my American Spectator column today and you should read the whole thing, in case you aren’t yet sufficiently depressed. Last night at the Radisson Hotel, I came to the conclusion that Republicans are on the verge of nominating their own John Kerry: A candidate whose supposed strength — for Kerry, his military service; for Romney, his business background — proves to be a dangerous weakness.

The Gingrich “super PAC” is about to unload $5 million worth of attack ads on Romney in South Carolina, and as weird as it seems for a Republican to be attacking “ruthless” capitalism . . . Well, Newt was always kind of weird anyway, so this only confirms what we already knew about him.

In New Hampshire, they still have only 98% of precincts reporting, with both Gingrich (23,271 votes) and Rick Santorum (23,118) at 9.4 percent. Michele Bachmann, who quit the race a week ago, got 349 votes Tuesday, which is more than twice the margin between Gingrich and Santorum. Take that as proof that New Hampshire voters are extraordinarly stupid. Top headline this morning at Memeorandum:

Ron Paul To Everyone But Mitt: Drop Out

Which is not the craziest thing Ron Paul has said in the past 24 hours. Hell, he probably said a half-dozen crazier things before breakfast today. But that’s how this campaign has been: Non-stop insanity from start to finish. It’s like being assigned to cover a psychotic breakdown, so that the challenge as a journalist is to report accurately all the paranoid gibberish, the bizarre hallucinations and delusions of grandeur.

And there is never enough time to report it all. I’m flying home today for a couple of days of rest, before it drives me nuts. Time to board that flight. Hit the freaking tip jar!

RECENTLY:

Jan. 10: NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY HQ UPDATE: Romney Wins; Ron Paul Second; Huntsman Third; Gingrich, Santorum Fight for Fourth Place
Jan. 10: Maybe This Explains My Problem
Jan. 10: Ron Paul and the ‘Not Romneys’
Jan. 10: Rick Santorum Dodges an Issue?
Jan. 9: Among the Paulistas in New Hampshire
Jan. 9: Ron Paul Campaign Flyer Emphasizes Opposition to Gay Marriage, Abortion
Jan. 9: Media Mayhem in the Granite State
Jan. 8: Bitter Fruits of a Bitter Seed: Envy, Feminism, Maureen and Meghan
Jan. 9: Sunday Morning Coming Down in New Hampshire ‘Meet the Depressed’ Debate
Jan. 7: POST-DEBATE SPIN ROOM
Jan. 7: ABC NEW HAMPSHIRE DEBATE
Jan. 7: Santorum Surge Hits Hollis, N.H. UPDATE: Photos, Videos Added
Jan. 7: Cain Still Loved in New Hampshire
Jan. 7: Rick Santorum Speech in Nashua: ‘New Hampshire, Send a Message’
Jan. 6: Two Excellent Arguments in Favor of a Jon Huntsman Presidency
Jan. 6: Newt Meets the Media in Nashua
Jan. 6: Ron Paul Rally in Nashua, N.H.
Jan. 5: Rick Santorum in Windham, N.H.
Jan. 5: Rick Santorum in Concord, N.H.
Jan. 5: Greetings From the Granite State!
Jan. 5: Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Eight Days in a Mustang Later …

Category: Election 2012, Fear and Loathing in New Hampshire, Shoe Leather Fund

Affirmative Action Is White Collar Welfare

Posted on | January 11, 2012 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

I don’t see the contradiction in saying that we will not discriminate, in a negative sense, while wanting the most qualified employees available, in the positive sense. These are ideas applied on a per-individual basis. Those ideas are applied in series, and the quota is far more important.

Things go pear-shaped when companies make sub-optimal hiring choices to fit that quota. “Well, we’ve gotta have a token WASP on the staff, or it looks like we’re discriminating,” said the Equal Opportunity Officer. The problem is that the WASP is an illiterate buffoon, and also a relative of the EEO, and two more people have to be hired to cover for the deadbeat. Does the company exist primarily to turn a profit, or to carry staff at the behest of the compliance gestapo?

Just because the government has found a way to enshrine the Raaaaacism Industrial Complex in law does not justify raaaaacism. Let’s drop race and gender both from all of our applications and let meritocracy reign.

Category: Racism

Going To The Political Party Meeting Was Like Eating My Vegetables

Posted on | January 11, 2012 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

I grew up thinking that political parties were mainly for nerdy, preppy people who were taking a break from chess club or something. Then I was in the military, where, while voting is a big deal, partisanship is like evangelizing: a big no-no. Which is good. The fact that the military swears fealty to the Constitution and neither a good President, nor Presidents with creepy imperial overtones, is foundational to recovering the country.

Last night was my intro to the Fairfax County GOP. I’ll likely end up joining, not out of any regard for the Republican Party as such, but the simple realization that, even if you plop a third major party into the mix, it’s going to resemble the GOP in short order. There is no magic formula for this sort of thing. Virginia, being over 400 years old, may be more baroque than other states. We have a committee here for everything except premature Mel Brooks references, but that one is coming soon. People running around with ballot petitions, like the ones all but the Paul and Romney campaigns failed to execute correctly, asking what legislative and magisterial (?) districts you are in. I sat at the Lee District table. Rest in peace, Elbridge Gerry.

Then I remembered I’m a blogger, and Stacy McCain would box my ears if I didn’t produce a post. Out comes the Samsung Galaxy II S!

	Jaime Radtkewas there, in a way George Allen was not. Mrs. Allen offered a fine speech about what great service George has offered over his long career. Jaime offered a rather wonkish litany of just how pear-shaped the political situation is. Also, she remembered having read this blog. One is nearly overcome by feelings of quasi-adequacy! Jaime is a serious contender for the Senate seat, and can succeed where Sharon Angle and Christine O’Donnell fell short, in my humble. George Allen, for all I like the guy, may have some PTSD associated with an obscure three syllable epithet; or maybe it’s just Romney-itis. The primary will tell. Go, Jaime!
Also attending was Chris Perkins of the 11^th District, whose wife my cel phone camera owes an apology. Perkins gave a rousing speech that had much better reception than his two primary contenders. I’m all for more active duty military presence in Congress, for reasons noted above.
	Finally, there was the 8^th District’s own Patrick Murray. Having just done this drill two years ago, he seemed significantly more relaxed than my first encounter with him, at CPAC09. Listening to his speech, one could not help but notice that he had a swagger similar to that of Patton, albeit sublimated, as he went on to note that, in a recent poll, he beat Moran by 4 points among independent voters in the district.Never mind the asphyxiated blueness of VA-8. This campaign promises to bring badly needed redness.

So, will I ever be a rabid Republican? Hope not, but I’ll join and do some of the drudge work necessary to get things going. One speaker noted that the debt is greater than 100% of GDP now, and some think the odds of a QE3 are about 50/50.

I am unashamed to admit being motivated both by fear of inaction and anger at the Progressive noose about the collective neck. Readers of this blog are encouraged to consider devoting a portion of your time and effort to supporting your local candidates.

Category: Republicans, Virginia

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The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

LIVE AT FIVE – 01.12.12

Rick Perry Has Replaced Jon Huntsman in the Coveted ‘Gov. Asterisk’ Position

Are The Taiwanese Animators Tantamount To Rosie O’Donnell In The Steel Bikini And Winged Helm?

Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Seventeen Days on the Campaign Trail

Philly Layover Musings: The Republican Party Is Depraved and Decadent

Departing from Logan: Live Free or …

Affirmative Action Is White Collar Welfare

Going To The Political Party Meeting Was Like Eating My Vegetables

THE FULL METAL JACKET REACH-AROUND AWARD

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

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